I am glad to get the opportunity to talk again this evening on this. I am sorry if I will be repeating some of the things that Deputy Fitzmaurice raised. It is because we are involved with the same kind of people and we are feeling for some of the people that have not 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 rebate for those who will qualify for it. Many hauliers who are very important people and who do great work will not qualify because they did not ever have to have a haulage licence. One of the components to qualify is to be a haulage licence holder. Many of those people will not qualify because they transport livestock. Drivers of lorries moving timber from forests to sawmills will not qualify. Bakeries that transport their own bread and scones or whatever to the shops will not qualify. So many of these will be left behind and it is not fair on them. On the green diesel, I am sorry to be criticising the Government's reductions but did it totally forget such a thing or does it know what the colour of it is or what it is used for? Tractors are a necessary component of farm production and for many months now, farmers could not go inside their gaps because of bad, incessant rain and weather. There is a whole lot of jobs left behind and still to be done. Many farmers are contemplating not growing the grain at all or ploughing for it because with this they were banking on getting something reasonable. In fairness, 3 cent is not good enough to compensate for the rise of 70 cent over the last two or three weeks. It has gone up from 98 cent to €1.68 in our neck of the woods anyway. I am sorry that these people have been left behind. They do great things like tractor runs for charities such as the Kerry cancer support group bus that takes many people to Cork. We were out last Sunday and I thank all the young boys and girls that landed in Barraduff with their tractors to support the bus that takes patients to Cork, Dublin and Limerick. Industrial machinery will be affected. There is an awful lot of talk about house building but a lot of people have gone into contracts for builders and they are now wondering will they be able to perform because of the cost of diesel, which is outrageous. Cranes, teleporters, diggers and dumpers are needed. They all run on green diesel and 3 cent will not make enough of a difference to give them the confidence to stay going. Fishermen who are already on their knees, use a lot of green diesel to run their boats. They are affected as well. They will not get it any cheaper from the suppliers. I am very disappointed that people who have to use green diesel have not been properly treated here today. A cut of 3 cent is not enough. I am asking the Government to come back with another proposal. Everyone is entitled to make a mistake or to forget something. We cannot leave these people behind like this because it is not fair. When I went into politics, alongside my father, he always said that you have to be fair with everyone. That is what we will have to do here. We will have to be fair with these people. They are not being recognised here at all today. That is being dead honest about it. Because the Government has not got it done today, it must come back in a very short time. It had almost four weeks to put this package together properly. I know it is not the Minister's or the Minister of State's individual job to organise this package but they are the ones in charge. They must get after the officials in the Departments to ensure that the farming community, the people that drive tractors and produce our food are looked after. Food is paramount to stay alive. On top of that, they are one of the major exporters of goods out of this country and they have to be recognised and treated as such. We need to make sure that they want to stay at it. With all the aggro that is thrown at farmers for the climate and blaming them for this and for that, it is wrong to leave them behind. It was mentioned that the story could get worse and the Government will 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. They have given so much of their lives. They inherited their places from parents or grandparents and they want to hand them down in the same way as they got it from their fathers and mothers, for their sons and daughters. They will not want to stay at it and when the young people who we are trying to get into the farming sector with generational renewal hear and see this, they will not put up with it at all. The Ministers must beg, borrow or steal. This Government borrowed almost €1.8 billion to give to Ukraine to keep the war going. That is our record in the last couple of months but we cannot give a greater part of the 70 cent back to the tractor men and the people who use green diesel. That 3 cent is all they can get. That is a ridiculous percentage. I am sorry for being hard here tonight but, when I think of the people out there, I am not that sorry at all because they have to be represented just the same as everyone else. I am afraid they have been left behind for too long. That is the fact of it. That was demonstrated here today. I welcome the good parts, such as what we are getting for the haulage industry, although not for other sectors. I am sad that the farmers have been totally and absolutely neglected by this Government tonight.

Sentiment score: -0.01