Richard O'Donoghue: Calls Out City-Focused Government Failures
Richard O'Donoghue addresses the Newcastle West Agricultural Show to outline how rural communities feel abandoned by a city-focused government. He describes personal encounters and protests, and warns of electoral consequences if infrastructure and energy failures are not addressed.
Voices at the show: O'Donoghue recounts meeting a nine-year-old from Kerry who credited him for standing with families during the fuel crisis. He explains how people at the Independent Ireland stall thanked him for peaceful protests in Fines, Limerick, and expressed that long-time voters now feel forgotten by Fianna Fáil and the Fianna Gael parties.
Energy and housing failures: He highlights the practical failures of current policy - families with heat pumps and solar panels who suffered three-week power outages, the reliance on diesel generators, and the unrealistic push toward electric cars for households that cannot afford them. O'Donoghue argues these problems stem from a lack of infrastructure outside the cities and warns that rural voters will remember at the next election.
Voices at the show: O'Donoghue recounts meeting a nine-year-old from Kerry who credited him for standing with families during the fuel crisis. He explains how people at the Independent Ireland stall thanked him for peaceful protests in Fines, Limerick, and expressed that long-time voters now feel forgotten by Fianna Fáil and the Fianna Gael parties.
Energy and housing failures: He highlights the practical failures of current policy - families with heat pumps and solar panels who suffered three-week power outages, the reliance on diesel generators, and the unrealistic push toward electric cars for households that cannot afford them. O'Donoghue argues these problems stem from a lack of infrastructure outside the cities and warns that rural voters will remember at the next election.
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Transcript
Minister, I was in Newcastle West last week at the Agricultural Show, the Newcastle West Show, and one thing resonated with me at the show, a young girl of nine years of age from Kerry, she came up to me and she was standing in front of me and her mother was behind her and I think it was her aunt that was with her as well and she turned around to her mother and her mother said ask him yourself and she asked me to know could she have a picture with me so I was intrigued why did she want a picture, exactly, so I was intrigued, a nine-year-old girl from Kerry to know why did she recognise me number one and why did she want a picture and I asked her, I said why do you want a picture with me and she said to me at nine years of age, my mammy takes me to training, my mammy takes me to my mattress, my mammy couldn't take me to two mattresses because of fuel and she said you stood with us when the fuel crisis was there, that's what a nine-year-old is saying from Kerry. Now can you imagine that, a nine-year-old, it's not laughing now is it, when you hear that a nine-year-old is saying it. So we had our stall, Independent Ireland had our stall in Newcastle West at the show and I didn't get a minute to myself with people coming to me and saying thank you number one for standing with us, thank you number two for holding a peaceful protest, thank you for number three for understanding where they were and I've said this on more than one occasion, that the people that were on the protests that I stood with in Fines in Limerick, were people that never protested before but they were all members of your party, the Fianna Fáil and the Fianna Gael parties, but they said never again because they believe you become a city-based party, that you've forgotten your roots, that your cabinet does no longer reflect the whole country, that's what they're saying. None of these cities or the large towns or anything were built, they were built by people that came from the county, built the likes of Dublin and they moved in here, they integrated so believe it or not Minister, Dublin and Cork and Limerick and Galway, everywhere they're all resonated originally from the county to build big cities, that's where they came from and their ancestors are here but this time when it comes to the next election they're going to remember what you've done to everyone in this country. They couldn't afford to buy an electric car, people have built new homes and have aerated houses with heat pumps and solar panels, I recommend it but when the snow hit and they had three weeks without power, what did they do? They've all bought diesel generators because when the infrastructure goes down they have no other way of heating their houses and the problem with the heat pumps and all that, you need 20 kilowatt of a generator to run it, so all they're going to do with their generators now is run an electric heater and run the power in their houses. So on one sense having an aerated house is brilliant but we're in Ireland lads, do you not understand it? Things go wrong, power goes out because a lack of infrastructure and then what do you do? You should have allowed at least one fireplace in the house so they could heat themselves if it went down. What happened? They all went back to their parents houses, their uncles and aunts houses and brothers and sisters houses that had heat because it wasn't able to be sustained in their own household. We're talking to young people with young children, could not live in their own modern houses because of power outages. We're talking about people here and we're trying to say right lads for the environment we want you all going in to electric vehicles. It's great if people can afford it but the average vehicle on the road at the moment is between 2010 and 2018. That's what they can afford but what does this government do? Because that's all you can afford, we're going to tax you out of existence and fuel and that's what you're doing. For people that can't afford to buy something electric you're taxing them out of existence. So how are you ever going to get to the area where you want them to go to? People have infrastructure in the cities and I welcome it but when you go outside of the cities there's nothing because the failure of government to put all your eggs in one basket and now people in Dublin are giving out that their children can't come home because there's no place for them to live because you filled all the cities and trying to make them bigger and bigger and bigger and you forgot about the generations that have moved out that want to come back home. That's what you forgot about. But if you put infrastructure around the country you should be able to live anywhere in Ireland and walk anywhere in Ireland if you went outside and looked at infrastructure. But all you do is try and cram more people into the one place so you think you can try and control them. But I will tell you something on my finishing comments is the day that you think that you can actually come out and give people a giveaway budget with five or six days to go coming up to election they'll never believe you again and each year you're dropping in the ratings one at a time and the next time you'll be dropping an awful lot less.