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

It may be construed by some that I have a conflict of interest as owner of a company that repairs and replaces water brakes and has been doing so for the past 50 or 60 years.

I am amazed that in all of the debates over water there has been no talk at all of the people in rural areas who have their own water supply and who have received little or no assistance to organise their own gravity supply, deep well pumps, or pumps to pump water out of low-lying streams and rivers. They have had to bore wells and improvise in whatever way they could and use whatever ingenuity they had to bring water into their homes. I feel that these people have to be recognised and have to get some help to in some way ensure that they will always have a safe and adequate water supply. The people in these rural areas have had to put in high specification septic tanks at a savage cost. The septic tanks also had to get planning permission, which was not always easily had. So many people in rural Ireland, including many in my own county, have septic tanks and their own water supply yet there is no mention of them at all in this whole debate over water. That is not fair, but then the people of rural Ireland are used to being neglected in so many ways at this stage.

It is very unfair when people like John Moran say that the people of rural Ireland are a burden to the State. The people of rural Ireland have always paid their way to ensure they live to the highest standard possible and I do not agree with those who claim they are a burden. If the critics of rural Ireland had their way then nobody would be allowed to get planning permission and there would be no one-off houses. If these people got their way everybody in rural Ireland would have to move to Dublin or other urban areas. What kind of mess would we have then? It is hard enough to house the people already there. We are now hearing mad rumours that planning permission is going to become harder to get when this new report comes in before the end of the year. There are rumours that the report is already there but that people are afraid to bring it out. It will be much harder to get planning permission in rural areas. What will happen then? Do we bring everybody in to urban areas like Dublin? The traffic jams will be worse. Every morning we wake up and hear on the 7 o'clock news that someone else has been shot or stabbed in Dublin. People are down on top of each other there. They are not able to cater for those who are already there, never mind bringing more people in.

It is a constant battle for people in rural Ireland to get their rights. It is a constant battle to get the road done. At this point I will thank the Minister, Deputy Ring, for providing the money for rural improvement schemes for 27 groups of people in Kerry. Those people are now very grateful, and I am grateful on their behalf, though I remind the House that they have been waiting since 2009. I also remind the Minister that there are still 100 people on the priority list and another 500 waiting to be assessed. That may give the House the full extent of the problem. People in rural Ireland are every bit as entitled to good roads to their door as people in Dublin 4. These are not private roads, as the Department has claimed, they are public roads that were never taken over by the local authority. These people pay their way but they are getting left behind all the time. All they are looking for is the planning permission to be allowed build a house, with most of them providing their own water and septic tank.

I will give the House one example of our strict planning laws. Areas around the towns of Killarney and Tralee are now deemed to be under what is known as "urban generated pressure". That means that anyone who tries to come out of the town and buy a site to build a house for themselves will be denied planning permission. This is also affecting the local young fellow a hundred yards away from where he wants to buy the site. As his parents do not own the site, he will not be allowed to get planning permission either. That is what is happening. Everyday we talk about housing here; we talked about it this morning. These people would build houses themselves if they could get the planning permission. It is sad to see this happening.

We also have the other extreme. Five families on the N72 into Killarney were refused planning permission to come out onto a perfectly straight road, a mile long and straight as the barrel of a gun. They will not be allowed out onto that road, which is very unfair. Despite the fact that the engineers from Kerry County Council gave them the go-ahead, some regulation signed into law by our present Taoiseach back when he was a Minister in 2012, directed the NRA, or the TII as they are now known, not to allow permission in cases like this.

People in rural areas who have their own water supply and septic tanks are not getting any recognition. I am glad that Deputy Nolan mentioned the group schemes. Very little recognition is given to those in group schemes. It is impossible to get an extension of a group water scheme or of a group sewerage scheme. No consideration is given to those in group schemes. If they go to the local authority to seek an extension of a group scheme, they are told to forget about it. There is no funding for those schemes. These are honest, good people who want to live like everyone else, but they are being denied services and hit very hard in this way.

As I said about the roads, if we have decent roads, if one Minister got his way, no fellow would be able to drive on them. He is trying to deny a whole group of people in rural Ireland the right to go to the local village or the local pub and have just one pint and a half pint. I hope the Deputies in this Chamber and those who are listening to this debate outside it will not vote for that Bill if it comes before us. I certainly hope that Minister does not get his way on that Bill.

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