Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)

I thank the Acting Chairman for giving me the opportunity to speak. I hope that when it comes to votes in the course of the debate Members will see that people in rural areas are being hounded. The only thing we are short of at this stage is an inspector going up the stairs and going underneath the bed to see what is going on there. At this stage we are not far away from that.

The only other thing I wish to highlight, which again shows the wholly incompetent way the Minister has dealt with the issue, is the fact that he ignored the calls at public meetings to deal with cases where a person is deemed to have to carry out remedial work but who does not have money to carry out the work. What provision will be made for such people? Does the Minister intend to make proposals to provide financial assistance? Surely be to God, we did have that, and we are grateful that was the case-----

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