‘You’ve done more damage than Hitler’

IN REACTION terms, the words ‘An Taisce’ have the same effect on some rural TDs as the words ‘Mick McCarthy’ have on Roy Keane.

An Taisce was one of the organisations that appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment yesterday to talk about the issue of rural housing and to be faced down by TDs and senators.

It was the kind of encounter where you’d be advised to put your seat belt on beforehand. Some kind of combustion was inevitable.

There were no shortage of TDs and senators to get their spoke in. But when trouble came, it came in the portly shape of Jackie Healy Rae. The south Kerry TD has never been one for understatement but his contribution yesterday brought over-the-top insults to Himalayan heights.

The format was simple enough. The national heritage trust made an oral presentation and then fielded questions from the committee members.

As these things go, it was a reasoned contribution. Chairman Frank Corcoran explained An Taisce’s statutory role in the planning process, pointing out that the organisation only lodged objections to a miniscule proportion of developments that had received planning permission. In essence, these would be only the most extreme cases where the planning regulations or EU directives had been breached.

When it came to the deputy from Kilgarvan, however, it was clear that the presentation had fallen on deaf ears. Drawing on his peculiar way with words, he described the presentation as a “chorus” before launching into them. “You [An Taisce] have done more destruction in south Kerry than Hitler did in most parts of Europe during the war,” he bellowed.

Fellow committee member Ciarán Cuffe, clearly angered by the remark, asked Mr Healy Rae to withdraw it, saying it was demeaning to the victims of genocide.

But Mr Healy Rae hadn’t finished. “It would take an atomic bomb to do more damage than you in south Kerry,” he accused the delegation.

Chairman Seán Power (who had earlier curtly cut off Mr Healy Rae when he had launched himself into a tale of woe about individual families’ housing problems in the Kilgarvan area) agreed that the comparison had not been appropriate but refused to demand its withdrawal. At this, Mr Cuffe withdrew from the committee in protest.

Earlier, An Taisce had been asked by Labour’s Eamon Gilmore if there were instances where an Taisce had approved of once-off housing in the rural countryside. Its heritage officer, Ian Lumley, had said that he could think of good examples in west Cork, one of the regions for which he as responsible.

Mr Healy Rae was obviously not impressed. “You would want the Blessed Virgin Mary to accompany you to get planning permission in west Cork,” he pronounced.

The An Taisce delegation maintained a dignified silence in the face of Mr Healy Rae’s invective. It was a first for the body that tries to prevent the destruction of the Irish countryside being accused as the main destroyers of it.