Danny Healy-Rae

The same blockage is caused on the national roads. People cannot get in or out on the national roads. What is the story with the granny flats? It is nine months now since the Minister mentioned that. Is there some hold-up on that? Can it be sorted out once and for all and put before us here? We do not have any affordable housing scheme in Kerry? What is going to happen with the new idea we have fo…

Will they be exempt from being zoned? Can it be decided by a planning application? Thank you very much, a Cheann Comhairle. I am sorry, I misunderstood the times.

I am glad to get this opportunity. I am delighted that the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, is taking the questions today. As he knows himself, we have not always agreed about everything, but he takes the question and he comes back and gives an answer. I hope that, on top of all the other times I have asked these same questions, something will happen now. We have a clause in Kerry known as the rural a…

Just let me finish this, please. Could we say that these do not need to be zoned and only need to be decided by a planning application?

Many of these places where the Government says developers could build a treatment plant-----

-----are not even zoned for housing, so this will hold all that up again.

When does the Government propose to exempt planning permission for the granny flats-----

Kenmare has been starved of private housing schemes for almost 20 years, first because we did not have an adequate treatment plant - some €40 million has been spent on that and it is fully operational - and now because we are told that the water supply is not adequate. I have raised this here before, including in recent weeks, and I want to know what the answer is. I ask again that the Government …

I am asking as well for a new grant of €20,000, on top of whatever is there before, for houses built under that size.

There is merit in that. I ask for forbearance, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Kerry County Council is now building no rural cottages. It is building hardly any houses at all. It was doing great work. People got houses built on their lands-----

-----and when they got on their feet, they bought out the houses. That is not happening at all now.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

The regulator is stopping it.

Employers all over the country are struggling with increased rate costs, pension auto-enrolment costs, and increased wage costs. Employees and people on social welfare are struggling with the cost of living, including energy and electricity costs. Everyone is struggling with the costs of the road and the price of petrol and diesel. At the same time, the Government was able last week to devote anot…

Every day since Bord na Móna was closed, the cost of electricity has gone up. There is no account whatsoever of a regulator keeping any track of what is going on. No one is saying "boo" to all these electricity companies. They are competing with one another to put up the price of electricity and no one is watching. The other thing is carbon tax. When carbon tax was brought in, the cost of fuel - …

Sit down-----

The Government's plan to lock people who are renting houses into six-year tenancies is not going to work in Kerry. People get on to me every day because landlords are refusing to continue leasing properties to them. Trying to force people into six-year tenancies is not going to work. The plan the Government has to force Airbnb properties into long-term letting is not going to work either. That is…

She objects, and then comes in here giving out about there being no houses.

I am glad of the opportunity to contribute. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this good and sensible motion. I congratulate the Minister of State opposite on making his comeback to the ranks of junior Ministers. On the morning on which we were wondering who the new junior Minister would be, I asked him if he was in line and what was happening. I wish him the best.

As I said, this is an important issue, particularly in a place such as Kerry that has mountains, including MacGillycuddy's Reeks and Mangerton mountain. We have a topography that no other county has, or, at least, that not many other counties have. We have the Atlantic Ocean pounding on three or four sides. We have three peninsulas, namely the Iveragh, Beara and Dingle peninsulas. We have many mil…

I am glad to get time to raise this very important matter, the spread of tuberculosis and the TB eradication scheme, which is clearly not working. We have more outbreaks of TB now after 46 or 47 years of testing. There are so many farmers going down in east Kerry, mid-Kerry and south Kerry. Even in Kilgarvan, many farmers have gone down, including our neighbour, Mikey Joe Murphy, who is very local…

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. It is very clear that we and the Department are not doing enough. If we keep going the way we have gone for the past 46 years and we do not change something, it will be the same story for whoever is here in 50 years' time. There is no point in the world going around vaccinating badgers. We do not know whether they had TB, whether they were infected with…

That is devastating for farmers. They cannot understand it. We rarely hear about an inconclusive animal. The numbers are getting bigger.

Before it was one, two or three but now if a fella has 60 cows, 26 go down. I apologise to the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach.