Green candidate confronts Danny Healy-Rae after his 'to hell with the planet' comment
Kerry Green candidate Cleo Murphy has told Danny Healy-Rae the ground was going from under him in climate change when the very road home to Kilgarvan and Kenmare was impassable after a landslide.
The pair had a shouting match at the count centre in Kerry after news came through the main road, the R569 between Kilgarvan village, Kenmare and Killarney has been closed due to a land slippage alongside the Flesk River in the wake of Storm Ciara
The council closed the road and all traffic to and from Kilgarvan is being diverted via Kenmare and the Moll’s Gap on the Ring of Kerry, but Moll’s Gap was flooded too, it emerged.
Danny had just given a TV interview dismissing climate change.
"To hell with the planet and the fellas that say we must save the planet and forget about the people! I'm not one of those people. I make no apologies to anyone, anywhere for that"
— Virgin Media News (@VirginMediaNews) February 9, 2020
Danny Healy Rae speaks to @ZaraKing, as he looks set to win a seat in #Kerry in #GE2020 #VMNews pic.twitter.com/31S56nNRpg
Ms Murphy, dressed in a green jacket, was already fuming about Danny’s interview on Virgin Media where the Kilgarvan TD said: “To hell with the planet.”
She marched up to Danny and before an audience and asked him: “So how are we going to get home Danny? How are we going to get home?”
“Foiladonn, past Glenflesk Church. I got the river cleaned there,” Danny told her, referring to a tiny road off the N22.
“The whole place is flooded and you are saying to hell with the planet,” Ms Murphy pressed.
“The Flesk River was cleaned because of my representation,“ Danny Healy-Rae insisted.
He did not believe in climate change and the reason roads flooded was because people were not cleaning rivers, he said.
“We can’t rise up the houses. We have to clean the rivers,” he insisted.
Ms Murphy afterwards remarked: “It’s ironic in the wake of Storm Ciara on a day when it’s flooded around the Moll’s Gap Road and the Loo Bridge is closed that Danny Healy-Rae would see fit to say “To hell with the planet”, she said.
