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Irish Independent
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Green leader accuses Michael Healy-Rae of ‘Trump-lite environmental madness' in row over peatlands
Mr Healy-Rae's stated plans have been roundly condemned by academics, conservationists and environmental campaigners since he unveiled them in the Seanad two weeks ago. Green Party leader Roderic O'Gorman challenged the Government during Leaders Questions in the Dáil on Thursday to explain if this was now official coalition policy. 'Just to be crystal clear, a policy of planting on peatlands that we have spent years trying to restore, trying to preserve, this policy would be environmental madness,' he said. 'Aside from being a breach of EU law and Irish policy, it would destroy an extremely delicate, extremely complex habitat that can provide a large and effective part of Ireland's capacity to store carbon.' Mr O'Gorman cited one of the country's foremost peatlands experts, Dr Florence Renou of University College Dublin, who said the plan was not a viable option. 'Is it the policy of the new Government to ignore science, to abandon our legal obligations and to destroy some of our best chances to capture carbon while preserving unique habitats?' he asked. Education Minister Helen McEntee who was answering on behalf of the Government said all options had to be examined for planting forestry but she insisted all plans would be backed by science. Mr O'Gorman asked why then Mr Healy-Rae had announced, in comments later repeated outside the Seanad, that he had instructed his officials to move to planting on peatland. 'Is he being allowed to indulge in a bit of Trump-lite – be anti-science, be anti-climate while purporting to speak for the people?' he said. 'Instead of 'drill, baby, drill', it's dig, drain and destroy.' He said either the senior agriculture minister, Martin Heydon, or Mr Healy-Rae, should come before the Dáil and explain what was going on. Ireland has some of the sparsest tree cover in the EU and the Government has a target of increasing forest cover for climate, biodiversity and commercial reasons. Mr Healy-Rae said, however, that farmers did not want to plant on grassland that they used for livestock and should be allowed plant on peatlands instead. Some planting is allowed on shallow peatlands that have been drained and stripped so much that they have largely lost their potential to capture and store carbon. However, the general policy is to protect peatlands that are still intact or have potential to be restored. That means removing drains from them and allowing them to naturally rewet which puts them out of scope for forestry. The Irish Peatland Conservation Council was among the groups that criticised Mr Healy-Rae, saying his policies would 'have severe environmental consequences and undermine Ireland's commitments to biodiversity and climate action'. "Ireland's Peatlands are meant to be open landscapes, and treating them as wastelands and only seeing them as areas to destroy and turn into industrial forestry is not recognising their importance,' said policy officer Tristram Whyte.
RTÉ News
14-05-2025
- Health
- RTÉ News
Govt expects audit of hip surgeries in coming days, Taoiseach says
The Taoiseach said the Government hopes to receive the clinical audit of hip surgeries on children at two Dublin hospitals by the end of next week. Micheál Martin was responding to the Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O'Callaghan who claimed the Government was entirely ignorant about how many children may be affected. The Taoiseach has been asked in recent days to clarify if all families and parents potentially affected by the Children's Health Ireland (CHI) hip surgery controversy have been contacted about the concerns. Mr O'Callaghan accused the Coalition of "trying to maintain plausible deniability about the crisis" by refusing to answer questions. Mr Martin described the issue as very serious and he said the Government has no objective in hiding anything. "The least we owe to the parents and the families are the facts," he said. Mr Martin said that letters already issued to families are general in nature and they were sent in response to an "alleged draft report" of the clinical audit which was published earlier this year. He repeatedly said that the number of letters issued is not the key point, but he added that the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has asked CHI to publish the number today. "It is horrendous if anything wrong was done but we need to find out the full facts," he said. The CHI-commissioned independent review into hip surgeries in children, announced in July last year, is looking at a random, anonymised sample of dysplasia of the hip surgeries, between 2021 and 2023, at Children's Health Ireland hospital sites, as well as Cappagh Orthopaedic Hospital. This type of surgery is where the ball and socket joint of a child's hip has not properly formed. Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said there is a "excruciating lack of information for parents" over dysplasia of the hip surgeries in children, and that the Government is "adding to the confusion". Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne that it was "incredible" that the Taoiseach stated during Leaders Questions in the Dáil yesterday that the audit will not go back 15 years. "The letter that parents are receiving I understand is saying that children are being called back for routine appointments. "However the Taoiseach has stated that the Department is identifying patients who may be affected but are not included in the audit. "Then we see reports in the media saying the appointment letters are because of an early recommendation in the unpublished review." "Clearly those three sentences cannot be true at the same time so the Government is giving out confusing messages in terms of what parents are being contacted." He added that if there is wrongdoing from previous years, it needed to be investigated. "Are the Government looking to do an audit for two years and then draw a veil over the practice previously? "Parents have a right to know what happened to their children a number of years ago, and citizens have a right to know why there is dysfunction in our health service," he said. The review has been examining whether the criteria used for surgical intervention varied between three hospitals and if surgery was required in all cases. Children who have had developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) surgeries at the hospitals are to be offered "routine follow-up care" in the coming months if a child is not already in a long-term follow-up process with one of the hospitals, according to letters sent to parents recently by CHI. It follows an early recommendation from the independent review, that is yet to be completed, into dysplasia of the hip operations at Crumlin, Temple Street and the National Orthopaedic Hospital Cappagh. The letters sent by CHI say that the follow-up appointment is part of the "normal post-operative review process and is not urgent". The letter states that the DDH review is not complete, and the hospital cannot provide any detail of its findings, nor can it comment on any media reports as to what it might ultimately say. "However, an early recommendation.. is that all children who have had DDH surgery should receive routine follow-up care until the child's bones have fully grown and developed (skeletal maturity) in line with current best practice," the letter from CHI states.
