Fianna Fáil has abandoned the people again.

We will watch it, do not worry. The people of Ireland are watching the Minister of State.

That makes it fine so.

Over the past few months, the Minister for Transport has been making one bizarre announcement after another. The first was that Irish people should grow salad on south-facing windowsills to ensure food supplies during Covid-19. The second was to tell drivers to slow down on the motorway to save fuel. The third was to have one car in the village to which people from rural communities should cycle and use to go to work. The fourth was to stop people from burning turf and he will not arrest grannies if they do so. All…

I thank the Taoiseach for his answer but I do not think he quite grasps what the question was all about. He spent about two minutes talking about fishing and farming. Good God, he should come down to west Cork and talk to the fishermen and farmers. He will not be long there; he will be run out of it quickly. The Taoiseach has to be straight with the public here. Outside of Dublin the local commercial bus operators are the biggest operators in the country, carrying out 30 million passenger trips yearly, mainly in ru…

That is what the Government is doing. What about the post offices?

Is it for all of Ireland?

It should be in the country, not just the capital.

The Taoiseach cannot grasp it; we do not have public transport in most rural communities.

Where do we have it? When do we have it? I can name plenty of places in west Cork that do not have it. We have private operators and they are willing to do this but the Government is wiping them out. It is sitting on its hands.

The ongoing saga of the temporary replacement for the Dursey Island cable car rolls on, with the announcement last week that the long-awaited replacement ferry service will start this week but can be funded for only three weeks. Many politicians have welcomed this but I am furious. The people of the Beara Peninsula and residents of Dursey Island as well as landowners and visitors are left with only a three-day-a-week service. I have raised this issue on numerous occasions. My colleagues have followed me in doing so…

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on the motion which addresses such a significant issue. As of now, do we know whether the sale of turf is banned? As far as the Taoiseach was concerned earlier today, it is okay to sell it this year. It is a case of kicking the can down the road as far as he is concerned. Of course, he will be gone from next year so he does not care. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who is now present in the Chamber, came out last week and said that grannies would not be arrested for burni…

On behalf of the Rural Independent Group, I too wish Teresa Doolan the very best in her new role, as well as wishing Noel and Liam the very best in working with us going forward. I welcome Councillor Frankie Daly from Limerick, and the students from Limerick, to the House. There is a massive issue in respect of passports. I presume that, like me, every Deputy, their constituency offices and staff are inundated with requests to get passports for people. For the past two years, people were unable to take a break or g…

The Taoiseach has been going to EU Council meetings regularly over the winter months. However, it appears that he and his Government are only raising a genuine question pertaining to the energy crisis at an EU level now when the worst of the dark and the cold winter months are behind us. Our Taoiseach has some neck to claim he gets permission from Europe to lower the VAT on fuel, but on the other hand the Government will increase the carbon tax in May, further burdening hard working Irish people. Since last October…

The number of vacant dwellings in Ireland stood at 90,158 last year, according to the residential building report. The housing situation in Ireland has been at crisis point for too many years. We need a different plan and a different strategy that actually works. Every single day, my office is blinded by the number of people being made homeless and the number living in squalor. My clinics, which are held on every Friday and Saturday, are bombarded with people looking for homes. I sometimes have up to 50 house queri…

In a recent radio interview, a Deputy from west Cork said carbon tax was difficult but good. I could not believe how anyone could be so far removed from his constituents. Just imagine every farmer, fisherman and hard-working father and mother in west Cork, who are now worried beyond words, wondering where they will get the money to buy food or fill the oil tank. That statement, made by a rural Government Deputy, mesmerised many, who mentioned it to me. I will tell the Minister how impossible carbon tax is to pay, o…

Open your eyes.

Tie up the boats then?

The Government should get out.

The public want the Government out, out, out.