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

I concur with Deputy Michael Collins in his point in relation to fishermen's incomes. Their situation is bad enough as it is.

It cannot make their situation any worse. When one sees how expansive Ireland's shores are, we realise how far-reaching the Bill will be. The sea is all around us. One can barely think of what is involved because there is so much involved, especially with our piers and harbours. People hope the Bill will not impinge on people's rights in using the sea, which they have been doing in different ways to make a living. We must also consider people in the tourism business such as those who run the small boats that take people out for tours of the bay. We hope this will not mean anything will change for them, only to improve things.

Included in the Bill is provision for dredging piers and harbours. The nearest pier to me is Kenmare. It is a beautiful place all around it, but I feel that it could be developed way more. The pier has not been cleaned out for nearly 70 years. The slag boats came into Kenmare up until 1960 or 1962, but they could not get in there now because the pier is badly in need of dredging. That needs to be looked at. I am sure there are other places apart from Kenmare with similar issues, but Kenmare pier is the nearest one to me. I gave a lot of my time on the edge of the pier working for Kerry County Council, even with cleaning of the seaweed along the pier. I hope that this will be included if the Bill is to be effective to help our local situation. This place is only 50 m away from the top of Kenmare town. If the pier was dredged it would have a massively positive impact for the town and for places local to the town. The pier itself should be developed and modernised to allow more boats to come in during the summer. The River Roughty cannot get out at the pier when the mouth of the bay is blocked, and then we are talking about flooding, and it is said that climate change is causing it. There are a lot of things that used to be done before that are not done at all now, including dredging of our rivers and dredging the mouths where the rivers run into a bay. Those things also need to be looked at.

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