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

I am very glad that Mr. McGuinness came in here. It is not an easy thing to do to come in and tell one's story like Mr. McGuinness has done. We greatly sympathise with him because we can understand greatly what is happening. Take our own Leader programme in Kerry. There were three excellent companies delivering the Leader programme. There was North and East Kerry Development, South Kerry Development Partnership and IRD Duhallow. Up until 2013, everything was working fine. They were getting funding and they were giving it out. The new proposal, which was set rolling by the then Minister, Phil Hogan, has finished the whole thing. There are 18 stages of approval now for the Leader programme. Not one cent has gone to any company.

As Mr. McGuinness said himself, communities want to help themselves. All they need is a bit of financial help and a bit of support. They are not getting it now. The Leader programme was about a rural, bottom-up approach up until now. We were the envy of all of Europe in respect of the way in which it was run. Now, however, it is terrible. I can understand Mr. McGuinness's reasons for not wanting to be part of it anymore because it has fallen apart. It is so sad really.

I have no apologies to make to anyone. All the Government is doing at the present time is manipulating the figures. The only employment in certain villages around the rural countryside now is community employment, CE, schemes. The minute a person goes on a CE scheme he or she is no longer unemployed in their books. That is the only thing that is reducing the figures in rural Ireland. There are no jobs being created. Every morning when I wake up there are another 100 or 200 jobs announced for Dublin. When I go out the gate here every evening there are tower cranes all around. One would wonder how they do not get stuck in each other as they twist around, there are so many of them.

We do not have that in the west of Ireland. The farther west one goes, the worse it gets. I do not think this Government has the will or the inclination to address the issues of rural Ireland. We have been denied infrastructure, broadband, roads and so forth. Every available penny one can see - and I do not know how much funding is available - is all being spent here on underground projects and overground, on the Luas and whatever else. We do not begrudge the people of Dublin, but we want fair play as well.

I can understand Mr. McGuinness's frustration about what has happened to his excellent company. I personally did not know about it. I can see from today that it was doing the very same kind of work that our development companies were doing in Kerry. They are stranded now. They are stopped. They wonder every day where the next euro will come from. They are dropping people like flies. They cannot pay them. Something needs to be done for that wonderful programme, which I raised in the Dáil Chamber again since I left here.

It is as if they do not want to give out the money. There are 18 stages of approval. Like everything this Government does, it is announced three or four times because nothing has been spent. There is some hurdle that has to be jumped or something that prevents it starting. It is the same with the housing. It is the same with everything. There are four stages of approval for local authorities to build houses and then the Minister says that he has removed those obstacles. That is not fair. That is a blatant untruth. Yes, the local authorities can go for a two-stage approval, but if any extra costs arise on the site or in the building works the local authority has to foot the bill for the extra costs. That is not fair. They are just not being fair and they just do not want to know.

I thank Mr. McGuinness for coming in to us. We are very appreciative for his time in doing that. It was not easy on his own. I thank him. He is very welcome here and if there is anything that we can do for him in the future I hope he will contact us.