Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is the only time we bear any grudge against Dublin people. We wish them all the very best. In turn, we are entitled to survive in our communities. Would it help if there were one national design and set of regulations to deal with all the species of nature and nature conservation? It is recognised that the road is needed. It is a matter of people before nature, including insects and snails.

This is about people, and it hurts when young people have to emigrate to Canada and Australia because we do not have any jobs for them in Kerry. The witnesses are being hurt in the same way. In some ways they are emigrating when they come to live in Dublin because they are living three or four hours from home and only travel home two, three or four times a year. We are losing them. Our villages can no longer field teams. Our parish of Kilgarvan does not have a football team now.

To ensure the road will be built, there should be one set of regulations to deal effectively and adequately with nature. I built a road for Coillte 100 m away from the Blackwater river, not the one between Cork Kerry but the one between Kenmare and Sneem. The pearl mussel was an issue at the time we worked on that road but there were ways of dealing with it, and we did not hurt the pearl mussel or affect the river. It should not be an issue. The roads referred to can and must be built, but we want our roads built as well.

The same applies to housing.