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

I am sorry to tell the Minister of State that I will not support the Bill. People in this generation are paying for the latest bank bailout. The Government is now getting ready for the next bank bailout and is asking this same generation to fund that bailout at the behest of the Central Bank. I do not know how the Government is tied to the pillar banks. Of the billions of euro the Government wants to put away in this fund, €170 million or €180 million would set up community banking. That would have saved a lot of rural Ireland's post offices, which are now being closed one after another. It is very hard for people to understand what the Government is at. Is it trying to cod the people? On the one hand, the Taoiseach says to the House that he cannot pay the nurses and the young teachers. He says he has no funding for this or that service, for hospitals or disability services, yet he can find money to put away to ensure that the Central Bank is paid and the banks are bailed out if something happens again as it did previously.

I refer to people with disabilities and people needing respite care. We have no services in Kerry. Not enough services have been provided for respite care for people with disabilities. I know many elderly people with a son or a daughter, people whose biggest worry is where their son or daughter will go. They are 75, 77 or 78 years of age. When they die, who will take care of their children? In Kerry at the present time we have no place for them at all. Why is the Minister of State with responsibility for disability issues not seeking to use some of the funding the Government is putting away to deal with those important needs?

We are falling by the wayside in dealing with mental health issues. We have no services, no facilities and no personnel. We just do not have enough resources to deal with people who have mental health issues. Sadly, so many end up committing suicide. There is too much of it around my own doorstep. That needs to be dealt with. As many as 600 people a year die by suicide. As I said the other day, if it happened on our roads, the roads would be dug up and grass would be grown on them. We would not be allowed to use them anymore.

We have a deficit and badly need more funding for infrastructure.

We have been waiting since 2004 for funding for the Killarney bypass. Killarney is choking with 18,500 vehicles passing through it each day. The little bypass we have is practically inside the town.

We do not have sewerage schemes in many of our towns and villages. Kilcummin has been waiting for a sewerage scheme since 2004. Castleisland is waiting for a sewerage scheme extension for the past 30 years. Scartaglin and Curragh do not have a sewerage schemes. Is it that all those people should go to hell? Is the Government saying it will put this money into this fund and everything will be grand? Is it saying to people in rural Ireland, "Manage away"? I am not being personal in terms of the Minister of State present but it is the truth. The Government is proposing to deny the people the services.

With regard to nurses and teachers, when the economy went bust they were told that they would have to suffer a bit for a while. If the Government has this money now, and I do not know if it has, nurses and teachers should benefit from some of it. I am very doubtful the Government has the money.

To take one issue I have been raising here religiously since I was elected to this House, namely, rural cottages, under the Government's watch ten rural cottages will be built in Kerry over the period 2016 to 2021. There are an additional 50 people on that list. They will provide the site and all they are asking is that the house be built for them and as sure as night follows day, those people will buy back those houses when they get back on their feet. That would put funds back into the local authority and those people would have a roof over their heads. I cannot understand why the local authority is being denied the funding to build those houses.

There is supposed to be a review of the tenant purchase scheme but that has been going on since I was elected to this House. That would put the Government back in funds. We cannot understand why people who are on pensions and could buy out their houses are not allowed to do so. We cannot understand what is going on. The Government is talking about social housing but it allows people to be evicted instead of letting the local authority buy the houses and allow the people to stay in them. In that way they might get back on their feet and buy them back again.

I cannot support the proposal because people today are suffering enough. They need the money. There is no sense in putting it away for another bank bailout.

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