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

Every day we hear figures of money being announced for housing here and there. Let us take Kerry, for example. Going back to sometime in late 2015, €62.5 million was announced for housing in Kerry. To date, we certainly have not got €10 million of that. In 2013, eight houses were to be built in Killarney. Four years later there has been much toing and froing between the local authority and the Department, after going through four stages of approval with the length of time the Department takes to come back. That is why we still have almost 5,000 people on the waiting list in Killarney.

I was very disappointed to hear Deputy O'Dowd say that he believed that local authorities had lost their way in building houses. He is just reiterating what the former Taoiseach said. I was very angry when the Taoiseach said in the Dáil that local authorities had lost their way in building houses. They have lost their way because houses cannot be built if they do not have money. The Department has created such a length of time before they finally give back the money. One of the stages of approval requires that the price for the 20 houses, for example, be reduced. We all know, however, that the price will be determined when the actual tender goes out and the contractors apply. This is what determines the actual price and what the houses will cost.