An independent TD says cans of hairspray are not to blame for the hole in the ozone layer.

Kerry’s Danny Healy-Rae says nuclear testing in the Pacific ocean 50 years ago is what caused the problem.

He was speaking in the Dáil as it ratified the Paris Agreement on climate action.

Deputy Healy-Rae says the agreement will have a severe and negative impact on farmers and warned he could not support anything that would reduce the national herd.

The Kerry TD said: “There was changes in the climate way back in times when there was no industrialisation and way less animals on farms and no intensification of farming.

“Yet we had intense heat, long periods of very cold, wet weather which culminated in many lives being lost in the famine in the 1740s, caused by two years of incessant rain and extremely cold winters.

“El Nino and the Gulf Stream played a significant part in climate change going back the centuries. There have been a lot untruths bandied about going back for many years.

“They told us about the ozone layer and there was greenhouse gases from cans of hairspray or whatever but they never told us that it was nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean 50 years ago actually caused the serious damage to the ozone layer.

“Thankfully it is mending and it is curing and it is not anything to do with policies in any country in recent times.”