Danny Healy-Rae: 3 Cents Was an Insult to Farmers

Last Comme Comhairle, I'm glad to get the opportunity to talk again on this very important and very indeed today a very emotive subject and while I do thank the government for the positive elements of the increases and the help that they're giving to some of the haulage industry because a great portion of haulers won't benefit from the tax rebate because they don't have a haulage license. Even the live exporters members who were in our committee while ago, they won't benefit from the VAT or the rebate because they will benefit of course from the reduction at the pump. That's what I asked for last Wednesday here that the people that are paying at the pump should benefit at the pump and indeed government we are told is benefiting almost 40 million extra each week since the price went up. This is what we've been told Minister. And the extent of what's being spent now for the next 10 weeks is around 25 million a week. And of course we welcome whatever we're getting. But the talk on the phone today Minister and my phone is, I know, every deputy's phone is busy but mine is exceptionally busy today because of the amount of people with tractors that are open arms and they're saying they're going to do this and that and that they'll have to be heard. And 3 cents when their diesel has been increased by 70 cents is not sufficient, that is not good enough. And the other sector that are very hot as well is the people with kerosene or home heating oil. 2 cents a litre for them is not enough either. And what I'm doing here tonight because I spoke twice last night is I'm asking to go back and if there's no way to give a reduction we must give a subsidy. We must do something for these people. We were able to do it for the Ukrainians, we were able to do it for a lot of things but we have to do this for our own farmers that are producing food, some of them out of small farms, some of them out of big enterprises. But they're all paying a massive sum now for diesel. Imagine it was 98 before the bombs, since a litre, and now it's 168. There's no change in that and I know that one fellow told me of 10 tractors and he's a contractor and when he fills them in the morning it's 6,500 euros for one day and that's the extent and the amount. There's big tractors now to do big work. And you know Minister, it clearly is no different to Kerry, since Christmas or before it no farmer could go inside the gap to spread slurry or to do anything. The very most of it is there to be done now. And a lot of fellows are wondering whether they'll grain or else, wondering will they bother planting the grain now. So I'm asking to get together as a government and ensure, come up with some formula for next week. It's more important than anything else to ensure that these important sectors of our community, because there will be a lot of industrialists come and go and we wish them all the very best. But every farmer tends to stay where he is. None of them are going to emigrate. They're not thinking of doing anything else. If they start as farmers and get stuck in, they generally finish up and they were proud to get the places they inherited from their parents or from their grandparents or whatever, but they want to hand it back in the same kind of a fashion or better than they got it. They want to hand it down to their sons and daughters and they're having trouble with that because generational renewal at the present time. There's many young fellows deciding now that why should I be working the weekend when all the fellows that I went to college with, because all these farmers' sons and daughters went to college as well, why should we be working the weekend when my friends and all the friends I have, none of them are working the weekends. And when they see something like this happening and that fellows are going around with their caps in their hands and they don't know what they're going to do or how they're going to continue or how they're going to pay the oilmen, people will stop up. And I'm asking not to leave it, go further than next week and do something positive together to help these people. Some people are saying because there was no excess in green diesel or whatever, that they won't get it back. Well, then we must give them a subsidy. There is a way around it. And like there's 70 cents of a difference now since they were kind of walking away. And fellows were under pressure enough to keep going with everything, with all the rules and regulations that farmers have at the present time, that diesel was dear enough. Because before it went to that, and before it finished up at that, it was only 39 cents a litre. Back in 2020, which is a shot five years ago. And what they're worried about now is that this will be the same way, that it could finish up around 150. And it won't work that way, Minister. And I'm not fighting. I have no gripe in the world, personal or otherwise, with you. But I am explaining to you here and to tell the government clearly, this can continue without being addressed. Three cents was an insult. Just a proper insult, that's what it was. And two cents to the home heating oil. I mean, not everyone is getting the fuel allowance. A lot of people that should get it are not getting it for one reason or another, and they're not getting it. But the home heating oil, that's all they have. And the other thing, Minister, and I've said this to yourself before, since the day Bournemouth was scrapped, the cost of electricity is going up day by day. We have no control in the world. We have no regulator. There's different ESB companies, they're charging different amounts, they're putting it up by so many percent, and others are bringing it down. There's no law with these ESB providers. And the regulator must be brought to task. And I don't know whether it was my design or whatever, but the day before, last night as we call it, all the pumps jumped to 228. If it was only one or two here and there, but every pump along the road went to 228, and I'm worried about that. And I'd ask yourself, is it what happened on your journey here? Because that's what I've seen, and that's very unfair if that's what I think is happening. Minister, I'm appealing to, and we're trying to work here together for the benefit of the country. But there's a whole lot of people very dissatisfied with what came out of here last night, and I'm asking to address it next week, as soon as possible. If he can't refund or take money off it, he must give them a subsidy towards it, a direct subsidy, that when they show you a receipt that they'll get so much back. I'm appealing to you to do that. I'm urging you to do that on behalf of the farmers and the tractor men all over the country, and not the other small thing that they do, which is not a small thing really. Last Sunday, about 50 tractors landed into the sports field yard in Baradov for the cancelling bus from Keretekar. They do all that kind of fundraising out of their own pockets, and we wouldn't have the cancelling bus if it weren't for those fundraising efforts, which means so much to people who get sick in Kerry. And think of that as well in your deliberations, because that is happening Sunday after Sunday, week in, week out. And think about what that means in real terrors to real sick people. Again, I'm asking Minister, it was the main focus for me coming up here last week, looking for help for hauliers and for tractor men. It's the most demanding reason that I have here today, and next week I'll be back again asking the same things. I'm appealing to you now as a government together to work and ensure that you do something for the price of green diesel and for the price to lower it of heating oil. It has to be done, one way or another. Thank you.