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

They are getting away with it so far.

We have a problem in rural villages and towns where business people and those who pay commercial rates and property tax have to fight hard to keep even the street lights lit or the streets swept. More often than not it is very hard to get the local authorities to attend to some of these villages. They are doing their best with the limited resources they have. People are angry in rural areas because they have to pay this and that charge, their property tax, their insurance premia and all their other expenses but what are they getting in return for that? They are being told now that they cannot drink a pint or eat a bit of meat. They are still driving over the same little bridges and small roads that were built 200 years ago. Some 800 applications have been submitted for local improvement schemes in our county. I do not know when we will get funding for the 800th one but it will be a long way down the road.

We cannot build a hospital for the children of the country or houses for the people. People did not have anything in the 1800s but a railway was built from Killorglin to Caherciveen in two years. That is the truth of it. They have every kind of a system now, every type of machine, every technology for drawings, other types of equipment for taking deliveries and all the modern gear. Traffic was held up on the M50 for six months because no one could give those doing the work a plan. The middle of the road was taken over and the traffic was slowed down. No blame attaches to the company that was doing the job, as it was waiting for six months for someone to land with a piece of paper setting out what those in charge wanted it was to do. Lorries were drawing waste soil from the new children's hospital as the big hole was been dug out on the site. Only two loads of waste material a day could be brought by some of those involved in the project to the facility in Monasterevin, and that facility was limited to taking in 100 loads a day because Kildare County Council would not let it take any more than that. If Members are wondering where the money has gone, it has been spent on things like that. Another 100 loads of waste material was being brought to a facility in Longford. That happened because some environmentalist said the material could not be levelled out in some hole that could have been found and surely there was hole in this county to which that waste material could have been brought.

A wind farm project was being developed in Kilgarvan but all the waste soil from that site had to be brought to an infill site in Killarney and some of it had to be brought to Kenmare. What is the cost involved in that?

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