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

I am glad to get the opportunity to support this amendment. As I understand it, the property tax was meant to be a residential tax. It now looks like if the farmer has a henhouse or a dog house, those hens or dogs will be charged the property tax as well. The amount of land around the property is to be increased to a hectare, which is 2.5 acres, which is totally unfair. This is like the fair deal scheme, where the farm is assessed but for everybody else, a residential property is assessed. We are taxing the farmer under the name of the property tax for 2.5 acres, which is totally wrong.

The local improvement scheme in Kerry had 697 roads on the list starting this year and we got funding for seven of them. That is the truth. I have said before that the people of rural Ireland are entitled to a good road to their door just like the people in Dublin 4. We see today how €2.4 million was paid for three buses here in Dublin, as if there are not enough buses in Dublin. They go in sets of four or five up and down every street with only one or two people in them. There is no bus service, meanwhile, for most of rural Ireland. The Government is away with the fairies.

There is no funding for group water schemes or people cannot afford them. As I stated yesterday, water is an essential service. There was much hullabaloo in Dublin about getting free water but people in Kerry cannot get water even if they pay for it. They are being asked to pay €8,000 or €10,000 per house in order to get on a group scheme from Kerry County Council but, lo and behold, Irish Water wants €2,000 added to the fee as well. It is the last straw that breaks the camel's back. There are five group water schemes in Kerry not going ahead because of that. I ask the Minister to tackle Irish Water about the process, which is totally unfair. Water is essential.

There has been much hullabaloo about charges and the people of rural Ireland were not considered at all because they provide their own water. When applying for planning permission to build a house, most people have to drill their own wells or get a supply from a water course etc. That is without any help from the State to provide the service. All it would rather do is stop people building in the first place. These people are providing their own site. In many cases, rural cottages are hardly being built at all in Kerry. We had people like Mr. John O'Donoghue of Farranfore and the late Mr. Paddy Gallagher of Valentia Island, who built many rural cottages around County Kerry. We seem to be going away from that because from 2016 to 2021, there was funding for only 13 rural cottages from approximately 60 applications. The rest have been left to go whistle.

People cannot get a demountable home. It is happening on practically a daily or weekly basis that a farmer - a man or woman - might have a house that is run down and people cannot live in it. We used to have a service where a demountable home could be brought out from the local authority but that is not happening at all in Kerry now. It is saying they do not have the funding for it. It is very wrong. These people may be in their 60s and want to live out their lives where they were born, bred and reared. It is where they have a few cattle, sheep and other animals. They are being denied that right. Any good thing we had, this Government and the most recent previous Governments have got rid of it. The Government now wants to put a charge on the 2.5 acres around a house, which is totally wrong.

It shows for certain we have a Dublin Government looking after Dublin. We heard what the Tánaiste said about how something will have to be done about the property values in Dublin for houses that are worth millions, and that the property tax will have to be reduced for them, whereas it will be increased in the rural areas and counties like Kerry. This is despite us not having the services people in the urban areas have. I am supporting this amendment because the people of rural Ireland are being let down again and this is another attack.

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