"One year the sun didn't shine at all" Drunk Irish PM attempts to discuss climate change during a hearing, hilarity ensues

Independent Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae has said he does not agree with all the talk about climate change because only God controls the weather.

“God above is in charge of the weather and we here can’t do anything about it,” he told the Dáil during a debate on climate change on Wednesday.

Mr Healy-Rae, who was elected to the Dáil for the first time in February, said there had been patterns of climate change going back over centuries, “before there was ever a combustible engine working in this or any other countries.

“If we go back to the 11th and 12th centuries this country was roasted out of it and in the 15th and 16th centuries were were drowned out of it,” he said.

“In the 1740s, we had a famine in which we lost more than three million people because of two years of bad weather.”

Mr Healy-Rae said it has been suggested that climate change is the cause of flooding in the country. “But the flooding is due to the fact that rivers have not been cleaned out,” he said.

The Flesk river in Killarney and Glenflesk was cleaned out 35 years ago, he said. “And it was grand for about 20 years. Now it is in a desperate state again, but the view is that now climate change is the cause of flooding and we cannot get funding to clean rivers.”

The Shannon had not been cleaned out “since the English last cleaned it out. Perhaps if that river were cleaned there would not be half the flooding or the need for funding to be set aside to deal with flooding”.

He said they had to start with dealing with silted rivers, blocked with trees and “every other kind of obstruction. We must start there and not get carried away with the notion of addressing climate change by hoping to change the weather.”