Mattie McGrath: Scathing Critique of Rural Broadband and Water Policy

I appreciate you, I want me to get in, it's time because my colleagues needed all the time they had, a lot to say on this issue, obviously, being from rural Ireland and rural independence, and Minister Ryan is the same, I don't have any personal message to you, indeed Minister Ryan, his grandmother, he's Seanad Eireann, he's Seanad Eireann, he's Seanad Eireann, he's Seanad Eireann, he's Seanad Eireann, he's Seanad Eireann, he's Seanad Eireann, he's Seanad Eireann, apparently in Tarnotty, but when you get to Dublin, and it's a common enough phenomenon actually, when people come to Dublin, second generation, or push him, they kind of throw away the wellies, and I don't want to ever again see him, or hear about him, and kind of see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, we're away from that, we'll become cosmopolitan, and we'll forget about the country, I don't mind you forgetting about the country at all, because you have, but I do mind, if you leave us alone, and leave us, eek out in existence, and live a happy enough existence, like our forefathers and forebears did, but no, we want to persecute us, destroy us, make us impoverished, and that's what's happening, and I'm not being an armistead, that's what's happening, our country, and you can't seem to see it, and I too, like the Hindi ways, and Michael Cohn, and Deputy Nolan, which you've done to the Board of Nemona, and the Boggs, just transitioning, the most unjust transition, that you could ever design, and indeed, what you've done to the, to, with the aisle, the Ballyro aisle field, I called it an act of national sabotage, we had people here, companies coming in here, bringing money into the state, and they wrote and wrote and wrote to Minister Ryan, the Minister for Energy Communications, whatever else, and he wouldn't answer the letters, for three years, three and a half, just frustrated them, and they decided to to block that pipe, we'll put concrete into it. Like, I have children, I have grandchildren now, as they were playing outside with sand and grove, they blocked the, they blocked the pipe going into the, into the, of the sink into the, into the footpath, into the drain, you know, you'll be, maybe Bukel and Colleen there now, but they think that our government agency, would do that as an act of decommissioning, decommissioning is one thing, talking about guns or something else, but a national treasure, a national piece of infrastructure. I think many of the white courts should carry out investigations of what's going on in this country. Certainly, because we don't have any mental health services, but I mean, something's badly wrong if people are just carrying out national sabotage, just undermining our strategic investment. When I go back to T.K. Whittaker and Charlie Mass and the people who founded this country and the visionaries that they had to bring electrification to all of rural Ireland, and they did some job. And we're here now with the last 10 years talking about broadband, and we can't bring it. And we're spending hundreds of millions and hundreds of millions and hundreds of millions, and we have many good private providers. One man band and one woman band, and maybe a couple of people working, who have their own masks and providing in local areas. You're banishing all the amount of assistance, because you have this new provider that's going to give us so many homes a minute or so many homes an hour. It's just failed utterly. Failed utterly to deliver what's a basic tool that's necessary to carry on business. To be educated. To transact anything now. Well, there's a rinca classes. You're wrong, a rinca. I mean, they did them on all their phones now, the music, and the different styles of dancing and different tunes. So they need good broadband in any hall to do that. They need it. The farmers need it out for the satinabs now and for the GPS systems out in the feed spreading fertilizer, which you don't want to be overspreading fertilizer. So you need that. But they're having the broadband to do it. And you must know that. And if you don't know that, you should know that. This situation with Irish water isch gairn now. I always said the only thing I liked about Irish water was the fuckle gail isch gairn. But now, like, I want to salute and thank the county council officials and the outdoor staff in the plumbing section especially, and the ordinary general operatives, for the work they have done. I go back further and salute the men, helped by the women. When I see a video recently of the Bataloubi water scheme, who has been dug by hand and been the pioneers and the late Joe Ray was involved in that, who became a fairly notable IFA leader, and brought water to people. Group schemes. And the county council know what I'm talking about. And we assisted in some cases, it was long before I arrived, but I was walking home from school off the bus when I saw Michael Barry, I sit in Ive and I salute him in Camp of White, laying pipes up my road to bring water to our houses. Before that, we had the drought from the pump down the road, the groin we called it, with a horse and a cat, our tractor and a cat, and fill it in by hand and pump it in the buckets and in the barrels and feed cattle with it. That's the way it was. That's not 100 years ago. But those visionary people, broad water, as they do now with people from Ireland and different organizations, bringing it to the third world countries out in Africa, and supplying water, we know the value of water. Then the big for all the Irish water, and the whole debate, and the hijack debate actually, about Irish water. Because water is a very valuable commodity, extremely valuable. You can't do anything without it. So they brought it. Then the group schemes were taken over by the County Council, and many of them were decommissioned. Good supplies of water. Then we had the Irish water took over. And in the transposition of the statutory instruments across from the County Council to folks to Irish water, left out one very important part, and that was the ancillary drains at the back of the houses, where they were built by the Council, put in by the Council, and now the householders are left, and I tried to get that amended in legislation. They did it in England, and we couldn't do it here. So to hell with the people. Let them start out their own, you know what. So you have Irish water then, and this year then we had a big for all the other speakers saying, thank God it was resolved. But it's not resolved in Tipperary. But there was this handover, everything by the 20th of September, which came here the day we arrived back from our recess. So it's not, it's kind of resolved in Cork, I think, and something in Waterloo. But we're still, we had industrial action during the year by union workers, and I said, I support them, they're entitled to have certainty of tenure, have certainty of employment, have the rights that they have earned, and that increments with the County Council, have that carried across to, if they're going to work with Irish water. And the last management I had, which I had seen in the County Council, the OCTUS briefing, they were legally telling us, the same days I met workers, that from the 20th of September, they have no more to do with war. It's like they caught it here, off which they were delighted to get rid of it. A scandalous situation for the people who have group schemes. Many of those group schemes have now been switched off and turned off, and were told to not fit for purpose. I raised it here as a topical issue, but the body of Clure Manor and the water situation there, and thanks to the Count Corle. Where we have valuable supplies from Pullarmanoog, from up to Ragwell, and indeed from up in Linnahairie. Both are three venues in County Waterford, but they don't mind giving us the water to supply our town and our county. And Irish water went to. Sure, after the finest one we have, they're worked on somewhere, they didn't have any outages, and stopped at Pullarmanoog one. And they're going to pump the water back up the road to the people. It's lunacy. Absolutely. They have a fine riser right there. They told us at a public meeting there that the reservoir was damaged outside. Now they're telling us it's damaged inside. So they don't even know where the reservoir is. And that's the major problem with Irish water. They don't know where the infrastructure is. And good men have approached me in the street and people who worked as caretakers in the water. One man, he was almost crying about six months ago. Do you know, Mattie, he said, I enjoyed my job and you often worked with me and people that rang me at all hours of the night and day and we kept the water going. And six months before I retired, I offered Irish water to send a man out with me to give him all the knowledge that I had, just to map and to know where all the air valves are and where all the sluice valves and where all the stop valves and where all those very important, you know, tea pieces are and joinings and where you can do it. And in another man, if you want to, if there's an outage in one area, and they refused. I just imagined such an insult. The knowledge that he'd built up and he wanted to impart it on to the next person. So now when water goes out, what happened recently in Glenahairie? They were dissatisfied with the council, caretaker up there and his staff. They said in a squat team. For three days, they walked in the plant. Didn't walk in the plant. They turned off every belt and moved every belt and twisted every belt and did tomfoolery of all kinds. And next thing, and at five o'clock on the third day, they said, we're out of here. We failed. And told nobody else to tell her our water. And then the poor caretaker had to go back in and try and find out what the belt that moved, kept no account of what they did. They don't know. They don't understand the plant. With the wetest summer in history, not history, sorry, but a very, very wet summer, and no water in the pipes, in the houses, the Talbot Hotel in the Talbot, 40 days of water from April to early September. We'll have to go back to the gas now. Yes, but I'm saying... Water is very practical. Yeah, but if you have the water, you'll have no gas. True. And when you're fracturing gas, you'll have to have water to keep things cool. But anyway, no, it's all part of the construct that was set up and the separation of duties. It's the gas. I will go back to the gas, but I'm just saying that we're three reservoirs. We're one in Calcutta and Cheol, Lingorn, and one in Alfinan regional water scheme and the Galilee region water scheme. Massive plants, Alfin is relatively new, Lingorn is relatively new, and the Galilee is maybe 30 years old. And they can't be filled this year because of technicalities and issues that I just want to understand. So they can't be filled. And without it, it's then low pressure, off at night time. And it's just... People can't understand it. So I will go back to it. Sorry. The gas, and the gas terminal, and energy, such a breach of faith. And again, I want to repeat because I was the leader of the group, of our group for the time being, and I organized a meeting with Minister, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, after the last election. We met in a, in a neutral venue, but he came on his own. So I knew well, he had no intent. And there was five, six of us and one or two of our, our support, our staff supporters. He had no interest whatsoever in joining us. We were prepared to support that government without the Greens, of course, but he had no interest. And, and we were prepared and for him to say he had no choice, he had a choice. But the prize of him being Taoiseach was the overall, the only thing he saw. Tunnel vision. He saw that prize. He didn't want to be the only Taoiseach, only Fianna Fáil leader that was ever Taoiseach. And by hand, I had the country paying a price for it. And in fairness to you, the Greens, like as Michael McGrath said last night, in fairness to us, we're against the carbon tax. He doesn't know what we're saying in fairness or to change with the weather every day. And the weather changes four or five times a day. So we're against the carbon. Of course we're. A punitive tax that's unfairly hitting elderly and vulnerable and older and rural people. So we stood where we were. He stood watching your policies. I know what they are. I wouldn't support them. I couldn't support them. I'm totally opposed to them. And it's a set of affairs. So he wanted, he made his bed, which he, and now he's made it, he's a bit uneasy lying in it. It's getting a bit itchy and getting a bit, you know, tenuous. I won't say anything about the dogs and laying down with fleas and you get up with flea dogs, whatever. I won't say anything like that. I don't mean that in any bad way. I'm just saying it metaphorically the way he has black-headed the country under ye. He shut down the bogs, the turfs, the gas. We wanted to have a gas LNG floating terminal in Cork, Barry Rowan Isle. And then we had the Shannon LNG talking about it for decades. But Eamon Ryan and all ye, your policy was to stop that at all costs. And you've achieved it. In a relatively short time, you've achieved it. And you should be trying to congratulate yourself and say, well done. You lived up to your, what I said in the tin, you're honouring your election pledges. But the pledges that Michal and Matt when he canvass around, I won't go into the villages in Kerry, I don't know them all anyway. And Minister Foley now said that he would, there was a prime plank to his policy was to make sure that the LNG plant in Kerry was going to be put forward. And then signed up a deal with his colleagues with Fine Gael at the behest of the Greens to put it into that statutory statement send more to Europe that we're going to destroy it. And that's what they have, destroy it. That is an act of sabotage and I would call it nearly treason. I would. To think now that we are depending on a pipeline bringing gas from England and God knows wherever. To think that we're closing, stopping the burning of turf. And to think that we're closing the bogs. And to think that we closed down lanes where others and brought in the peat from Latvia and other places. I mean, you just couldn't make it up. And nobody believed it. I, like, everybody, went over to meet both the SRI and also the solid fuel suppliers. And they're furious. They can't sell smoky coal. And they have to sell the coal and play all that and be regulated and be within the law. And there's literally loads of coal coming down. They get rang up for a price. Oh, no, you're seven pound deer in a bag than what I can get it from. Drop from Lisburn. Drop to the yards in Cork and Kerry and Tipperary. Next day, where are the customs? Where are the bad inspectors? Every day of the week we come on RSA inspectors on the road. With the guarantee, the RSA, revenue, social welfare, all that. Why aren't these people being tried? It's illegal coming in here and we're wiping our sole traders out of business. Wiping out of business. We have one in Ballangary, a great man, John, and he had a sole business and a plenty of people when he was busy wiped out, wiped out and tell us that we can't burn the smokers and he's going to bring in loads of them. So that's rubbing the people's noses and we wonder why people are angry and agitated and annoyed. Rubbing their noses so you have those suppliers, you have the people who worked in Borden and Mourne, you have the people who worked in the best, you have the people who had promises of more work in Kerry when that energy term would be working. But of all, you had a duty of this government and the government, a duty was to ensure a supply chain, a fuel supply chain to keep our country alive. Previous speakers I was sitting in the chair and spoke about the numerous warnings this year, Sinn Féin speakers and others from the grid and from the air grid and about the ouches in the middle of the summer even. And we see 400, these people have been turned off their gas and turned off their oil and coal and everything else and we allow the data centres to have increased the usage of electricity by 400%. Why would you treat data centres, multinational companies like that, preferential treatment and destroy the livings and the livelihoods of Irish families? What has got into this government that are so anti-Irish families and that they are so pro-big multinational companies? That's one basic clearing place. Hundreds of people off the box cutting turf. I'm glad that people went to Borneaha this year is in Cundiport next to my parish and cut turf. I'm glad that Maura Healey Ray was able to cut the turf, turn the turf, stand the turf, load the turf, bring it back home and please God she'd be able to put it in the fire too and keep the stove going in the pub in Kilgava. And I'm glad that many more did that. It's only common sense. It's of the land God's given gifts of commodities and foods. You have the same with the cows. They're giving off too much gas she said. You want to go like the gas counter? They're giving off too much gas it's great gas oil. You want to stop them doing that? So the thing is it doesn't add up. I mean it all it all but this is all might be slightly funny but the people are seething with anger. Seething with anger. You want to force them into electric cars and they can't get them chairs and you will not at any time look at the construct and the materials that are going to provide the batteries for the cars the lithium and it's mined by children child slave labour. You put your head down definitely and you won't look at all of that it's a horrific abuse of children and you're fine to make bigger batteries and I saw a bike the other day at the back here I was going home and I was throwing the bikes and a long bear and a big long battery like the Toblerone inside the barrel inside the barrel inside the barrel there's a long battery I'm told I said where's the battery it's inside the frame of the bike I'm told so I mean it's all fine stop our people and perish kill them of their livelihoods kill them of their culture their heritage their dukes as well and kill them of that but yet import all this stuff and the fact it's coming from living mines by slave labour mining it we're not interested no interest in that we don't mind we're all best by the class we're going to go green we're going to go electric doesn't care where it comes from and cut off our nose despite our face in their resources natural as God-given resources when the world was created and and and and and the continuous attack on the farming community relentless and the continuous you mentioned as well the continuous spin out there that the farmers are pollutants and we have agencies like the EPA that will not inspect the county council effluent plants not plants at all they're big safety tanks they're not plant and I told you I've talked to my county I told this to the county manager last day as well and the EPA shouldn't have done that report about the rivers when they weren't going to be fair and inspect the council and the local authorities effluent plants and they blame the farmers it's a trick the trick our trick the farmers have done their best to mitigate and and and it's going to take years for some of the solutions they have proven to take place but the EPA are not fit for purpose how dare they do a report and and turn a blind eye to their local authorities I got a picture there to the summer a lovely summer a nice summer two lads from Microw County young farmers out on a boat off Dunleary off here in Dublin and the two trails of sewers polluting out and that's plain as day a video of it going out across the sea and then you try and demonise the farmers you want to fix what's going on in your own house so just a bit my focal score and thanks for your forebinds I think that this whole construct now that of setting up this new company is is fanciful and it won't work and look at the experience we have Irish water I'm going to have to interrupt you because by order of the house we have to finish now so I ask you to propose the adjournment thank you for your reason when you come back you'll have a minute and six seconds I propose the adjournment for round I thought we might