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

I have heard so much about the cuckoo here.

It is a grand thing to hear the cuckoo under Mangerton Mountain or around the Roughty River. It was very wrong to give these funds that name. It is such a lovely bird that comes to our shores every year. It is grand to be listening to the ding-dong about housing that has been going on here over the last four or five years. It is clear that the Government needs to tackle the investment funds and try to level the playing pitch. It was very wrong to see young couples competing against these massive investment funds to try to put a roof over their own heads, only to be blown out of it by these funds which are being incentivised by the Government. That incentivisation must stop.

There are other things we need to do to help young couples in Kerry and in every other county up and down the country. We have a regulator going around rezoning land now in all our counties. The regulator is even dezoning serviced land. We have another scenario where it finishes up with only one square of land zoned and that developer then has a monopoly and can charge whatever he or she wants to charge. We need to zone enough land and let there be competition or else forget about zoning and let every planning application stand on its own when it is submitted to the local authority, Kerry County Council, Cork County Council or wherever. However, it is wrong to give any developer or investment company a monopoly. I have nothing against developers because if it were not for developers and builders, we would have no houses.

There are also designations, like urban-generated housing, to stop people building outside towns. Tat is actually hurting the people outside the towns in the first place. People who do not own land and want to buy a site are stopped from buying a site, the same as the people coming out and denying them the chance of building in their own area. It is very wrong.

Places are not serviced. People need to start on the ground with sewerage schemes and water schemes. Our infrastructure is falling asunder. Different things are happening at the present time. Irish Water is charging €6,500 per house in a development. Insulation is going up by 40%. What are we going to do about it?

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