Danny Healy-Rae

I will do that in spite of anyone interrupting me. The facts are that I never voted for it. That tax will be coming in tomorrow morning without any vote here tonight.

There is no vote about it tonight. It will go ahead in the morning because Sinn Féin voted for it before. That is God's gospel truth.

They do not understand their place. I never interrupted them. In any event, I am disappointed with the way some of the carbon tax is spent. In the name of active travel, the road into Killarney is being narrowed. The footpaths are now wider than the road and the carriageway. Wide vehicles are having serious trouble passing each other at Fossa, where the great Cliffords who shook Croke Park in the…

By helping the clubs, we will be helping the players.

I am glad to have an opportunity to debate this issue. I thank the Social Democrats for putting the motion before the House. It certainly is very timely with the budget happening next week. I have been and am appealing to the Government to get rid of the means test for people who are caring for loved ones. We are talking about human beings. When people become carers, they must, in many instances, …

I am glad to have this opportunity to raise with the Minister the matter of young fellas, boys and girls, leaving our shores to go to Australia simply because they cannot buy or build a house in this country no matter how good a job they have. I attended an event in Barraduff in east Kerry a couple of weeks ago for ten local youngsters who are departing our shores. Some of them have already gone a…

I thank the Minister. The people I am talking about know about the help to buy scheme. Many of them do not qualify. The Minister referred to zoned land. We have zoned land in Kenmare. Johnny Healy-Rae raised this last week. There are two applications before Kerry County Council that have gone out for further information. Developers are supposed to provide their own water. They have been asked to …

I ask him to increase the cap that prevents people from getting on the housing list from €37,000 to €60,000. People are going away and not enough is being done.

I ask the Minister to ask the local authority to build rural cottages on land owned by family members because it is only building one house a year at the minute. That is not enough. We would want to have-----

I want to ask a specific question regarding Daly’s roundabout in Killarney, on the N22, which the Minister knows well. There is a proposal by TII and Kerry County Council to remove the roundabout and replace it with a traffic light. Five sets of traffic lights are supposed to be put up instead of the roundabout. I ask that temporary lights be provided first to see how this will work. Killarney is …

Like everyone else in here and like most of the world, we are all outraged by what has been happening in Gaza to the Palestinian people for almost the past two years. It is terrible. It is horrible. No words I can use could capture the wrong that has been done. I look at the Deputy across from me, from Wexford, Deputy Brennan, who spoke yesterday evening in such an eloquent and heartfelt way abou…

We all know how important participation in sport is for young and old, and how it brings communities together. Adequate funding should be in place for sports clubs and organisations in all our towns and villages and clubs constantly have to fundraise, which puts parents and fundraisers under financial pressure to support them. The funding provided through the sports capital funds has had a very p…

I thank Sinn Féin for giving us the opportunity to discuss the cost of insurance in the Chamber. We have done it many times before but I do not know if anyone has been listening to us. Clearly, there is not enough competition in the market. I honestly believe, and have said before, that when Seán Quinn was competing in the market for insurance and was an alternative, that was the only time that in…

I am glad to get an opportunity to talk about this matter. I will start with drivers who are over 70. I have been looking for this for many years. I am a contractor, and my father was at it from 1956. We have a long record of service of taking children to school in Kilgarvan and Kenmare. I understand the plight of drivers when they reach 70. I had the finest drivers who had to park up and forget a…

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk about the energy crisis. I thank Sinn Féin for giving it to us. What I have to say I have said several times before. Since Bord na Móna was closed down by the previous Government in 2020, the cost of electricity has gone up day by day. That is a fact. In the past week or two, different energy companies have been raising their prices by 10%, 12% and 13%. Th…

I am in a group.

Since you closed down Bord na Móna in 2020-----

-----the cost of electricity has gone up day after day.

What are you going to do about it, Taoiseach?

Since you closed down Bord na Móna in 2020 the cost of electricity has gone up and we need to have a discussion about it.

What is the Government going to do about it?

I am glad to get the opportunity. Even though so many people with disabilities are allocated home care or home help, often the home help never turns up, or at least not the amount of it that is supposed to be given to people. I have a case of a mother and daughter. The mother is minding the daughter for the past 35 years. The daughter got an acquired brain injury. She had strokes and several thing…

I thank Sinn Féin for this opportunity to talk again about this very important topic. Many parents face a challenge when they find out that their children have special needs. It is another challenge or big burden on many of them to ensure their children get a proper education. We know that every child has a right to education, and it is not fair that children with special needs are not always give…

I am glad to get this opportunity. I thank Deputy Brian Stanley for tabling the motion on this very important and serious matter to give us all the chance to say a few words on it. We know the scenario in County Kerry is very drastic. Practically no dentist will take a patient on a medical card to remove or extract a tooth or to deal with that patient at all. Gladly, when people were in very dire …

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak about this Bill, which deals with very serious matters that affect every community, especially in Kerry. There are many failings and many issues. The Minister has said the HSE's annual service plan is to be replaced with an annual performance delivery plan. An issue I have encountered in this Chamber since I came up here is that, every budget time, we vote…