Danny Healy-Rae warns carbon bill will hit rural Ireland

Thank you very much, Ceann Comhairle. Mind yourself up there now, I'd be afraid you might fall over that. This bill, if it's implemented, Ceann Comhairle, in its current forum, will adversely affect every man, woman and child in rural Ireland. Carbon charges increases will affect people going to work, will cost them more, farmers income will be reduced, as they will have to reduce their heads and pay more carbon tax for diesel. Honorary, honest people will have to pay more to heat their homes and are being told that they can't burn turf or timber, that they must insulate their homes and put in heat pumps and air-to-water systems that are very costly, and where will only working people get that kind of money, maybe up to £40,000 to do these kind of jobs, poor people that aren't working and people that are in small incomes and struggling as it is. Already the wait for deep retrofit is more than 18 months, even two years for those who will qualify, and it's only people on fuel allowance remember that will qualify for this. Tourism sector, which is vital to Kerry, will be financially burdened by the carbon tax changes, and by the authorities of our Minister here, Eamon Ryan, who has said that air travel charges would have to be increased. This will prevent visitors from coming to Thailand. Harriers and transport, even though most harriers have gone along now with the new Euro 6 diesel engine, they are going to have to pay more carbon charges as it is, and the Minister doesn't understand this. Farmers by 2030 will have to reduce their herds by 51%. I hear Fianna Fáil deputies contradicting that and saying that we were scaremongering. We are not scaremongering. We are telling the truth, and that's the truth about it. Tagus and ACOT advised farmers for the last 40 years that they would have to increase their herds, and Colney in 2013 told dairy farmers to increase their herds, that milk was the new white gold. He told us that the Chinese would drink it. I think they don't like it at all, no. And no government that he is still a minister in is telling us to cut production by over 50% by 2020. And to see what's wrong about this. The Minister has said that farmers who are doing their best to cut their own carbon, and have hedges and have ground that sequesters carbon, that would take seven years to measure that. But in the meantime, all the farmers who don't produce any CO2, and the ones that are sequestering more CO2 than they actually produce, notwithstanding all this, after this bill they will be paying more carbon tax. And where were the discussions with the farming organisations, IFEA, the Beef Plan, or the ICMSA? There has been none. Yes, they have an advisory council. Yes, they had agricultural committees, or climate action committee meetings, but they were all private. The people that would know what they are doing, wasn't allowed in it all. And that's where they are at. Farmers have great strides made to improve their farms, and environmentally over the last number of years, combined with the nitrates directives, and storing and spreading slurry safely and properly, with low emissions, vacuum tankers, trailing shoes, dribble bars, and all the likes. Chinese and the Asians are actually building more coal burning power stations, to create electricity. Africa, India, and Asia, and Chinese, can use our reliable diesel engines in machinery. We have to have the Euro 6 engine, and we have to add blue, which is troublesome. So, and the Chinese, building eight coal burning stations, and we are closing down our coal burning stations in Borna Mona. And in normal times, outside of the pandemic, there are, at any one time, if we look up at the sky, there are 7,000 planes. Are they going to be operated by electric or batteries? Where will they plug in in the sky? How long will it take to charge these pens? But the farm will have to get an electric tractor to spread its glory by 2027. And where are the Fianna Fáil TDs that said that it's in the bill? It certainly is. It certainly is. And he needn't be trying to cut the people at all, because he won't get away with it. And the good tractor that they have, there will be nothing for them, only send them to have a lane for scrap. That's where they'll finish up. After all, here efforts, Minister, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together with this bill, the question that I'm asking you is, how much will he reduce the global temperature? What mathematical modules are he using? He's just scare, he's just scare mongering, and it's just another tax. And he must know that the global temperature has only reduced by less than 1% since 1850. That is a fact. If we all left this country, closed the doors and turned off all the lights, it would only reduce the emissions globally by 0.13 of 1%, and that is a fact. Worldwide, because we have no rules in relation to the order of business, but seeing as the Minister involved, I'm asking you now, where is the funding for the local improvement schemes for rural Ireland and for Kerry, where is the funding for a proper water supply, operating in mid Kerry around Beaufort, which is broke down every day, and people have no water. That is essential. But here, he hadn't looked at him things at all. This government headed by Michal Martin, already have enough harm done. He closed down the border, he shut him down. No more mass speed, no briquettes. Oh, yes. Import them. It costs money. And there's carbon. There's carbon being used to import them and bring them in here. Do you realise that at all? Are you awake at all? Or what's wrong with you? And you see, we are leaving 10,000 acres of bog behind us in Littleton and Tipperary, and we didn't have gold or diamonds to start out with, or we don't have oil, and if we had, we wouldn't be left to use it. And you see, I'll go back again. This thing that you're going to, that the Minister of the Year will be able to bring forward a carbon budget, whether this doll supports it or not, this is undemocratic. And Putin, there's a lot to talk about him at the present time. He's nowhere as bad as this. Not the hope in the world. He wouldn't be at the races at all with the gang that we have here now. To think of that stunt, that he can push a budget too, without giving the doll any say, stand up, Berman Ryan, and tell us if that's democratic, because it's not, and he won't get away with it. And if he'll get away with it for the time being, he won't get away with it when he'll go to the doors the next time, because that is undemocratic. And this, and the people of, and the men and women of 1916 and 1921 and 22, they have fought for democracy in this country. And he are trying to, he are trying to shut it down. But if he'll try that, and probably he will with the, with the, with the voting arrangement that he have, and the way that he are tied together at the hip, to the fall just for to stay in power, are backing this, and backing him and Ryan in this, maybe he'll get away with it for the time being. But I say to each and every one of you, he'll regret it, and he'll be, he'll get it back at the door, because that's what he deserved, for trying to blaguard the people, the only good honest people of Ireland, that are trying hard to survive. He are trying to drive them down through the ground, and that's what he racked, but he may not get away with it. I hope that he don't. He might get away with it temporarily, but he'll have to face the people, and that's democracy. Thank you Deputy. And he'll get your answer for sure, and I promise you that. Thank you very much.