Whether it is right or wrong, and whether you are on the winning side or the losing side at the end, at least we did not sit on the fence and abstain. We had the guts to stand by our farmers right around the country. I am asking the Tánaiste -----

----- in the spirit of Christmas for his Government to do that.

But every block builds the house.

I have a query. Has there been a change to the rental accommodation scheme, RAS? I have been contacted by a few people who bought a house and they wanted to sell it. They went through all the procedures 100% correctly, gave proper notice and everything. It appears to be happening with Galway City Council a lot. The council went through all the procedures and there is a timeline of eight or ten months. It has gone on for a year and now the council will not answer emails. The owner of the house does not know what is …

I can send on details.

I have no financial or other interest in hunting and do not even own a gun. I cannot be accused of being lopsided because of it. A lot of people would not even know what neosporosis is. A farmer in rural Ireland whose cows are aborting will know all about it. It comes from foxes where overpopulation happens. We come from a managed landscape. We saw a few years ago, from Kerry to Donegal, throughout the country, the problem of the overpopulation of deer. People driving on the roads had to dig into their own insuranc…

I wish the Ceann Comhairle and everyone here a happy Christmas.

I do not object to the Minister's plans but I have a few queries, including on the agricultural side. I welcome the exemptions. There are new regulations requiring farmers to collect soiled water. The exemption that they can put down a tank to gather that soiled water is a help. It is to be hoped they will get a targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, grant for it. That will help water quality right around the country, which is the bottom line. The one part of it I am trying to fathom is that a lot of the…

During the week, the news of the derogation was welcome, but the real work starts now. Unfortunately, unelected bureaucrats in Europe have put in a proviso, because of the habitats directive, that over the coming years, what a cow does in a field and the impact of this on the Barrow, Nore, Suir, Blackwater, Owenriff or whatever other river will have to be screened. This will cost the State millions of euro. I do not know if there will be enough scientists to do all of this in the timeline. There is a bigger and wid…

Europe is always able to add more but no one ever asks whether a mistake was made or whether the ECJ's interpretation has gone too far.

Are we now prioritising a snail over people being able to drink water, live in a house, have a port, have an airport or farm their land?

At the moment, we are starting on the derogation for farmers but what will happen?

They will drive it down to the ordinary small farmer in this country. Thank you, Chair.

I am not pointing-----

I welcome what the Minister has said but this is the reality so far. Unfortunately, I have lived through a review of the habitat's directive. I was invited to go to a meeting. To be honest about it, I would have been better going home to count the cattle, because I wasted a day doing a review of the habitats directive. You were only allowed to speak for a few minutes and after that it was, "Good luck and good night" and nothing ever came of it. I did that a few years ago after being asked to do it. The sad part of …

Most elected representatives, if the playing field is fair, are open to trade agreements. The reality of the past few trade agreements, be it Mercosur or this one, is that the playing field is not fair. I smiled when I heard the Taoiseach say a few years ago that one was backward if one felt one needed a sovereign state. When he spoke about Ukraine the other day, he made reference to a sovereign state. Europe has stripped us of an awful lot of stuff. We are in control of fewer and fewer things. Europe developed the…

I wish the Taoiseach well with the new legislation he is bringing forward in relation to infrastructure. If it is not emergency legislation, we will be caught again down the road with regard to housing, motorways, roads, waterways and sewerage. How would the Taoiseach like to get this message? I welcome the new legislation but this is another part. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, was set up by the State.

The EPA. An Bord Pleanála was set up by the State. I got a message the other day from a guy I know in the west who employs 200 people. Howya Fitz? Eighteen months now and we are still waiting for planning. €3 million spent before that. €3 million to spend. Someone else called last week from An Bord Pleanála to have another walk around. Business doesn't wait, Fitz. We have worked in specialised manufacturing, in pharmaceuticals and in microchips. We are now in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. 200 people employed, 40 more…

The Taoiseach's new legislation - and I wish him well on it - has nothing to do with this. How are we going to get these people to do their jobs efficiently, properly and fairly for the people of this country?

As I said earlier, I welcome the legislation he is proposing but it talks about ABP judicial reviews - I agree that there are too many of them - and how it will be more difficult, to put it simply. There are different tweaks like that and the Taoiseach is talking about emergency legislation but I am talking about an ordinary person who is creating jobs in rural Ireland. In the west, 200 jobs to us are the same as 4,000 in Intel. That is the reality. The problem is that before we go to judicial review or keep going …