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

I support the Sinn Féin Deputies tonight. This is a very important subject and a very important amendment. It deserves to be supported because it is not many weeks ago that we met the good people who came here to protest. There were grandparents, parents and young children who were living in homes that were crumbling around them. After every weather event, be it frost or rain, their houses changed overnight and more cracks and more disintegration occurred. There could be nothing more upsetting, worrying or financially detrimental than the house around one falling down.

I met couples who owned a property each, perhaps before they met and married.

The husband and wife would each have had a property that was falling down. Of course, they were only entitled to one allocation of compensation. That was an awful worry for those people. They deserved 100% compensation for the position in which they found themselves, and it is only right and proper that every Member here should support the Deputies who have spoken correctly and strongly on behalf of their constituents.

We did not want to have to meet such people, and they should not have had to come to Dublin to protest in the first place. They had to do it because they had to stand up for themselves. It was so sad and upsetting to meet those people and hear their life stories and what they have gone through, along with the hardship they suffer. I wanted to put my shoulder to the wheel for them tonight.

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