Joe Cooney
Clare · Fine Gael · Ireland
“The Minister said that budget 2026 money is tied to reducing disease and I commend him on that. It is having a positive effect. Reactor numbers are down significantly year on year to June and the herd incidence rate is also down. That is welcome.”
“I compliment the Minister on the great work he is doing. With respect, farmers battling with this disease cannot live on engagement or reviews with no end date. Every month this drags on, more and more reactors are being removed at values set three years ago, while cattle prices continue to climb, which is good.”
“The scheme designed to compensate farmers for animals lost to TB is simply not fit for purpose. The market value caps are totally out of step with the real world and farmers are being left thousands of euro out of profit. The Minister has publicly stated that he is monitoring and reviewing these caps.”
“Pharma, medtech, ICT, financial services, aviation, agrifood, and green energy sectors all have a natural home in the Shannon region. The Roche site in Clarecastle is a prime example of the region's industrial capacity.”
“I thank the Minister for his update and his commitment to Shannon and the wider mid-west region, which is very much appreciated. The overdevelopment of Dublin is not a Dublin problem, it is a national failure of planning and political will. Shannon and the wider region are not asking for charity.”
“Ireland is at a crossroads. Dublin is bursting at the seams, housing is scarce, costs are out of control, infrastructure cannot cope and commuters spend hours of their lives on packed roads every day but two hours west of this Chamber, we have an asset of great national potential, Shannon and the wider region.”
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“This is my first occasion to address the Chamber and outline what communities across rural Ireland have experienced. I am delighted I can use this opportunity to highlight the damage that has been caused and how it continues to impact on them. We have heard much talk of learning lessons from the recent storm. This is one such lesson, and one I feel we must learn from if we are to effectively prevent such long-term outages in the future. Prevention is always better and much more cost-effective than the cure.”
“Will the Minister address these issues by reviewing the setback distances to recognise the discrepancy between the height of the trees and the space between them and the power lines; creating a fast-track process to grant landowners a felling licence to clear corridors in a timely manner to prevent history from repeating itself; resourcing the forestry service properly so it can undertake more inspections, stronger enforcement actions and preventative measures such as issuing felling licences more promptly; and, finally, including legislation that enables the ESB or telecom companies to clear set-back corridors in cases where no action is being taken by the landowners and to attach the costs of doing so against the value of the forestry?”
“In many cases, even from a casual drive-by, it can be seen these standards are obviously not being managed by some landowners. Even the responsible ones agree the setback distances are inadequate. The figures clearly do not add up. The results are there to be seen in the vast number of premises left without power after the recent storm.”
“I compliment them on the great job they carried out in restoring power as quickly as possible in very difficult conditions. In more than 80% of the power line issues, believe it or not, the cause was trees. One person in the west Clare area told me that of 40 reported line breaks that were responded to, 35 were tree-related in forestry where the setback distances were either totally inadequate or not managed. Currently, the forestry standards manual provides for a setback corridor that is 20 m wide for 10 kV and 38 kV lines. This means a pathway that is 10 m wide either side of the power lines through forestry where trees are growing to a height of 15 m and 20 m, and more in some cases. Within these setback corridors, trees are not permitted to exceed a height of 3 m.”
“The recent storm highlighted the risk to our electrical and utility infrastructure, most obviously within our rural communities, often to our most vulnerable. We have heard calls for electric and fibre broadband cables to be buried underground. There may be merit in undertaking that as a long-term objective in some cases. However, I argue that there is a much simpler and more cost-effective solution. What I propose would have a significant impact on the resilience of a large portion of our power and communications infrastructure across rural Ireland. In the storm's aftermath, while supporting the people most impacted, I came across windblown trees that had taken down multiple lengths of lines and poles. ESB workers have all told me the same thing.”