Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Is oth liom a rá gur seachtain an-bhrónach í an tseachtain seo. River Inagh has been killed stone dead. Thanks to a big dump into our river, we have thousands of dead fish, insects, eels and so forth. I spoke on the news about it but that does not really make a difference because that will not clean up the river. What has happened in River Inagh could happen anywhere. I urge the support of the entire Houses of the Oireachtas to make sure we never see this happening again. The only way we can prevent that from happening is if we make sure we have accountability.

We gave plenty of agencies in this State now, such as Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, county councils, which have enforcement officers, and many other environmental and ecological institutions. It is of paramount importance that we get a result from what happened here. We need to find out how and why it happened. It is a crime against nature.

People who go there now ring me every day to tell me they are crying because it is so devastating to see everything dead in the beautiful River Inagh, which we grew up beside and that we used to wash ourselves in on the way home from the bog. It is a really sad day for Ireland. One of the saddest things that can be done is to kill off an entire habitat. All the stock in the river is gone. We had salmon from the size of a thumb to adult, all dead now. That takes 20 years. We will be 20 years getting our river back. Fair play to the community, who are having a public event on 19 May to see if we can get our river back. I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Ryan. He wants action on this. We need prosecutions.The same could be done to any river. It could happen anywhere. It is an absolute disgrace that this can occur in 2023. It is like something that might happen in the 1950s, when we did not know how important it was to mind our rivers. I encourage the entire House to support me on this. I will not let it go. We must have accountability. I ask for the support of colleagues to ensure the same thing does not happen to other rivers.