Danny Healy-Rae: Farmers left behind by diesel rebate

First of all, Cathaoirleach, I'm glad to get the opportunity to talk again this evening on this. I'm sorry if I'll be repeating some of the things that Deputy Fitzmaurice raised, and because I suppose we're involved with the same kind of people, and we're feeling for some of the people that haven't been properly seen after here today. I welcome the good points that have been brought forward in relation to the white diesel and for the reduction, and for the rebate for those who will qualify for it. And you see, I know that many hauliers who are very important people and doing great work, they won't qualify because they didn't ever have to have a haulage licence, and that's one of the components if you're going to qualify, you have to be a haulage licence holder. And many of those people won't qualify because they're for transporting livestock, they won't qualify. Timber lorries moving timber from foresters to mills won't qualify. We have so many different people, bakeries who transport their own bread and scones or whatever to the shops, they won't qualify. And there's so many of these that will be left behind, and it's not fair on them. But then, the green diesel, and I'm sorry ministers to be, you know, we'll say contravening your reductions here today, but he totally forgot that such a thing, or do you know what the colour of it is, or do you know what it's used in? Because I can tell you that tractors are a necessary component of farm production, and for many months there now, farmers couldn't go inside their gaps because of bad incessant rain and weather. And there's a whole lot of jobs left behind still to be done, and many farmers are contemplating not growing the grain at all or ploughing for it, and especially with this, they were banking on getting something reasonable, but in fairness ministers, three cents is not good enough to compensate for the cost, the rise that has taken place over the last two or three weeks of 70 cents, because that's what has gone up from 98 to 168 in our neck of the woods anyway, and I'm sorry that these people have been left behind. You know, they do great things like tractor rolls for charity work, for the Carey Cancer Link Bus that takes so many people to Cork. We were out Sunday, and I thank all the young people that landed in Barradw, boys and girls with their tractors to support the Carey Cancer Bus Link Bus that takes patients to Cork and to Dublin and to Limerick. Real machinery is going to be affected, ministers, and there's an awful lot of talk about house building, but I can tell you there's a lot of people gone into contracts for builders, and they're wondering now will they be able to perform because of the cost of the diesel. It's outrageous. You'll have to have cranes, you'll have to have teleporters, you'll have to have diggers, you'll have to have dumpers, they all run on green diesel, and three cents is not going to make enough of a difference to give them the confidence to stay going. Fishermen who are already on their knees, they use a lot of green diesel, that's what they run their boats in, and they're affected as well. They won't get it no cheaper from the suppliers, and I'm very disappointed that people who have to use green diesel have not been properly treated here today. Three cents is not enough. I'm asking to come back, look, everyone is entitled to make a mistake or to forget something, but I'm asking that we have to, we can't let these people behind like this. It's not fair, and when I went into politics alongside my father, he always said you have to be fair with everyone, and that's what we'll have to do here, ministers, we'll have to be fair with these people. They have not been recognised here at all today that's been dead honest about it, and I'm asking, seeing as he hasn't done today, he must come back in a very short space of time. It's almost four weeks to put this package together and put it together properly. I know maybe it's not your individual job to organise this package, but you have the ministers in charge, and they must get after these officials in their departments to ensure that the family community, the people that drive tractors, the people that are producing our food, and food is paramount to stay alive, and on top of that, they're one of the major exporters of goods out of this country, and they have to be recognised and treated as such, and make sure that they want to stay at it, because with all the agro that's thrown at farmers for the climate and blame him for this and blame him for that, it is so wrong to let them behind, and there's mention there that he's waiting that maybe the story could get worse and that he'll have to come back to deal with all the other things again. So be it, but do not come back here another day without thinking of the farmers who are so important to the country, and who have given so much of their lives, and they inherited their places from their parents or from their grandparents, and they want to hand it down in the same way as they got it from their fathers and mothers to their sons and daughters. They won't want to stay at it, and the young people that we're trying to get generational renewal into the farming sector, when they hear this and see this, they won't put up with this at all, Ministers, and I'm asking you, look, big borrowers are still, this government borrowed a loan of almost 1.8 billion, I think, to give to Ukraine to keep the war going. That's what our record is in the last couple of months, and we can't give a greater part of the 70 cents extra that the tractor men and the people that use green diesel, that three cents is all they can get. That percentage is ridiculous, Ministers, and I'm sorry for being hard here tonight, but when I think of the people out there, I'm not that sorry at all, because they have to be represented the same as everyone else, and I'm afraid that they're too long being left behind, and that's the fact about it now, it was shown here, it was demonstrated here today, I welcome the good parts of what we're getting for the haulage industry, but not for the other parts of it, and I'm sad that the farmers have been neglected totally and absolutely by this government here today and tonight.