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

I have asked the Minister of State several times to tell us truthfully if the Government has the money for the scheme. I am very doubtful that it has the money. In 2015 we were told that €62.5 million was to be given to build social housing in County Kerry. That is well over three years ago and I can guarantee that €62.5 million has not landed in County Kerry. A total of 20 houses have been built in Killarney. That is the number that have been built so far and a few more have been started. A few houses have also been bought here and there.

The Taoiseach did not know what a demountable home was. There are several families in County Kerry still living in such homes. One couple has been living in such a home for 22 years and they are now looking for a new one. There is a blockage for the local authority which has been caused by the Department.

7 o’clock

No demountable home can be brought to anyone unless his or her current place of occupation has been burned or flooded and it is not to be lived in permanently. Not being able to use a demountable home in that way is clearly a blockage.

I know of several farmers who are living on their own or with their wives, but the couple I mentioned raised their only daughter in a demountable home and she comes back to them every weekend. They have no other place in which to live. They want to live on their own land.

The situation is the same in the case of rural cottages. If the Government has money to give to local authorities, why is it the case that only ten rural cottages will be built in County Kerry in the period between 2016 and 2021? There are a further 37 households on the waiting list for a rural cottage to be built on their own land. They have the site, which is the main element, but the local authority is only receiving enough funding to build ten cottages. These are the facts. If the Government had the money, I am sure it would allow the local authority to build 47 houses, instead of just ten, but that is not happening.

Under Project Ireland 2040, people who just want planning permission to build their own house are being denied it. A family received planning permission from Kerry County Council to build a house, but a serial objector appealed the decision to An Bord Pleanála on a number of points. Planning permission was refused by it on the grounds that the person concerned was living too far away from his place of work. That is the whole truth, your honour, and nothing but the truth. A distance of 6 km was considered by An Bord Pleanála to be too far from his workplace.

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