Danny Healy-Rae blasts closures, carbon tax and Shannon LNG reversal

Thank you very much at the outset, Minister. You won't have time to answer me verbally, so I'd ask if you could write to me after the answers that I'm asking, I suppose. The first thing that I want to highlight, Minister, is the fact that Skellig-Moytl is closed, and it has a devastating effect on the entire locality down around Bannon-Skellig, the Glyn, Port-McGee, the entire area of Waterbury and Clars-Iveen. Boats and Ferries licensed by the OPW, they're all idle. Businesses are doing nothing, and will do nothing, even though that pubs and restaurants are supposed to open at the end of the month. I'm asking you, and appealing to you, to open Skellig-Moytl to visitors. Other than that, the whole place is closed down, and it has a massive adverse effect. I'm asking you to open the national path to the Jarvis and Kilarny. I want to highlight the fact that there's a lot of talk in the Programme for Government about transport, that the summer bus service twice daily, which operated twice daily, from Kilarny to places like Khmer, Larik, and Kashtown, Bairns, and Gareth, and steam around the Ring of Kerry. There's an announcement today by Boats and CIE that that's not going to operate this summer. That's terrible for many people that were looking forward to that every year, and it's not going to happen this year. Minister, I want to ask you, how much of the 25 million of your budget will be allocated to the national park in Kilarny? He got 26,000 acres for nothing, and it kept open all during the virus, which meant a lot to people, which was very costly, to keep it open during the virus. I'm very disappointed with Deputy Michal Martin for what he has done to the people of Kerry and not Kerry. He promised him during the election campaign that he would support Shannon LNG. He has turned around now for to become Taoiseach of the country and to get support from the Greens. He's going to shut it down and stop the company that has spent 70 million already in this project of spending more money, of creating 350 jobs, temporary for three or four years while it was being built, and 50 permanent jobs. That's what he has done to the people of not Kerry, and I'm very disappointed on him. Carbon tax. It looks to me that the whole debate for farming the government has been about carbon and about climate change, and there's little else being considered only how to get the support of the Greens and to get them inside, because what I call this programme for government is the Greens' programme for government. And it's not the case of the Greens joining Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, it's Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are joining the Greens. And that's the way it is going. Rural Islanders are set now to pay, by the way of carbon tax, for new shiny electric buses for Dublin and for Cork, and to add down the services in Kerry to rural places, like I mentioned already. The ratio for capital projects. I have been highlighting here the need for the Killarney bypass to be put in place so that the town won't be choked, and ruin tourism in the town. And it looks like there's no mention of that project. I'm glad that the McCroom bypass has started, because if it hadn't started before now, it looks like to be shut down and stopped. The idea of bypass, where is that now? I'm asking this incoming government to consider what they're doing to the people of rural Ireland. And it looks to me that this programme for government is going to paralyze ornery, hard-working people by charging them as much as possible for carbon tax. Drive the bag of coal up to 20 euros, poor elderly people, that that's all the means they have for keeping themselves warm. Drive the litre of petrol or diesel up to 2 euros a litre. I mean, people in rural Ireland need a reliable service and a reliable way of getting to work. Electric cars are not the item at present. There's no place to plug them in. They won't go far enough. People have to travel long journeys to go to work. And I appreciate the people that get out in the morning, Minister, and travel long journeys and work a hard day and travel home again and do the same thing day after day for to keep bread on their table. Them are the kind of people that I support and that I'm representing. It is fine to put a million a day into walkways and to cycleways, but they're for recreation. And that's fine. I don't begrudging. But do not nail the hard-pressed people that are going to work. They're after getting a break for the last few months with the price of diesel, but sadly they weren't able to go to work. There was no work to go to. But it looks like they're going to be nailed by the incoming government if they do get together. The green government, I call it, because it's not Fianna Fáil or not Fianna Gale. They're leaving their people down, and they're leaving them down very bad. The people that supported them traditionally back over the years. They're leaving the army, walking people down. The farmers and the businesses that are trying to employ people, they're leaving the whole lot of them down for to get poor. And that's what it's about. Like they've turned their backs and the people have not carried. And Shannon LNG, Michal Martin, promised sincerely in the election campaign that he'd support Shannon LNG. What is he doing now? He's shutting down, shutting it down, and stopping the company of spending money, their own money, not government money, their own money. That's what he's doing. Thank you.