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

I thank the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, for trying to rectify the housing situation. I appreciate anyone who is doing their best. However, too much emphasis is on what the private sector will provide in this plan. Local authorities should be given funding to build more social houses. We should build more rural cottages where applicants provide the sites. We should give local authorities like Kerry money for homes to be sited in farms or other places so people do not leave the places they were born and reared in.

A proper tenant purchase scheme, as touched on by Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, needs to be put in place. There is a stipulation that a house built since 2015 cannot be purchased. This is out the window when we hear the Taoiseach saying he supports the ideal that everyone should own their own home. That is not happening, even with local authorities. The cap for a couple with three children is €33,600. People a small bit over the threshold are thrown off of that.

On planning permission for one-off houses, we are having trouble in Kerry at present and I ask that it be looked into. We need treatment plants for towns and villages that have been crying out for them for so long. In Kenmare, you cannot get permission for a development but you can for a one-off house. All development is stymied by the state of our treatment plants in our towns and villages. Scartaglin and Curra have no treatment plan at all. Scartaglin was number one at one stage when Tom Fleming and I were councillors. Where is it now? It is on no list at all.

There has been much talk of the cost of rents. The Government must consider doing something to reduce the percentage it takes from landlords paying 51% or 52% tax. That has to be addressed.

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