Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

I am glad to get the opportunity to speak. As the Acting Chair is well aware, I represent a rural county, although of course we have great towns. We have a vast rural territory. The issue of loneliness, including for farmers, was mentioned earlier.

I am very grateful for Ms Earley's overview. I welcome especially Dr. Breandán Ó Caoimh. I know him very well. He is originally from Gneeveguilla and he lives in Cahersiveen. He is a fierce man for rural Ireland and he has done a lot. We really appreciate him. We are very proud of him, as he does great work for young and old. He understands the issues we have.

When we talk about rural development companies, we have great ones in Kerry. We have the south Kerry partnership and partnerships in east and north Kerry. IRD Duhallow straddles the Blackwater river. It serves the western part of north-west Cork and the eastern part of east Kerry. It is under the stewardship of Maura Walsh and Joe McCrohan, who was here last week with the social farming group. They do great work for rural places such as we have in Kerry.

We were sad that IRD Duhallow was moved fully into Cork and it no longer works in east Kerry. The areas on either side of the Blackwater river have the same cultural values and issues and even though the river goes through the area, it is as if it never did because they are the same kind of people. We have the same again in south Kerry where people from west Cork interact a lot with people in south Kerry. They have the same issues of mountainy and maybe not-so-fertile land, but they make the best use they can of what they have, and always have done. They have survived through thick and thin.

The rural social scheme is vital for rural places, for fellows to make a few bob and to do good for their area. They have done great work under Maura Walsh, Joe McCrohan, Eamonn O'Reilly and all the core staff. We really need to keep those things going full belt and to enhance them everywhere we can. The only way we can enhance them is to get more funding all the time. As we all know, because of health and safety regulations and all of that, the money does not go as far as we want it to go.

I have a couple of issues that have been giving me a lot of bother in recent years. I have raised them several times in the Dáil with the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and whoever else. One of the biggest issues we have at the moment is planning. Many people who would build a house for themselves are not being allowed by what I call foolish strategies and nonsensical rules. One rule is the strict urban regeneration rule, which was to prevent people coming out from towns, but what it is actually doing is preventing people from building where they were brought up and reared by their fathers and mothers. They might have a site right next door to them or might be able to get a site from a neighbouring farmer or landowner but they are not permitted to do that because of this rule. I have asked the Government about it at every opportunity. I make no bones about highlighting it here because it is ridiculous. I heard Deputy Aird talk about farmers. Farmers sons and daughters were hurt for a long time but they are being facilitated now. It is the people who are living in rural areas who perhaps do not have a farm, who work in Liebherr, Fexco or Munster Joinery in the place we mentioned, Gneeveguilla, in east Kerry.

A farmer's son or daughter is considered, but a neighbour who has always lived in the same place is not considered. I am asking that this be looked at.

We have another terrible issue. We have way over 100 km of national primary roads. Someone who wants to build a house where there is an existing entrance or exit onto a national primary road will not be allowed to build a house and use the existing entrance. These people would build the houses themselves. They would borrow the money and get it. They would work for it. All they are looking for is planning permission. I am asking that the Government look at this. I am also asking that this committee further that request and add its weight to it because it is reasonable. It is just for a house for people to live in. When these people cannot get permission they move into towns, and some of them are going away to Australia. I was at a function the other night where ten people from one little pocket will be gone for Australia before Christmas. Those things are terrible.

I do not want to take up the meeting. I am glad to get the opportunity. I was a member of this committee in my first term here and I appreciated the work that was done by it then. It is doing great work. We will all work together. We have a purpose here, which is to help the people in rural areas on all the issues that they have. Planning is not the only one.

We have a list of local improvement scheme roads in Kerry like no other part of the country. We have more than 600 on the list. That started out with almost 800 roads on it back in 2018. We are not even down to 600. Those are rural people. They are not private roads, for fear anyone thinks they are. They are roads where there could be ten, 16 or maybe 18 houses. People and farmers are in and out of these roads but, because they were never taken over by the local authority, they had to go on the LIS list. The amount of funding we are getting is only doing between 12 and 20 roads every year. We need to address that too.