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

I thank the Social Democrats and Deputy Cian O'Callaghan for allowing us these couple of minutes this morning. We are sick and tired of the Government blathering, blowing and boasting about affordable houses and Housing for All. It will build 5,500 affordable houses for Dublin and the rest of the 7,500 houses are for the remainder of the country. However, no affordable house will be built in Kerry in the next five years. People are asking me day in and day out where the affordable houses are and when they will come on stream. The Government has no one on the list for Kerry for the next five years. People cannot get planning permission across half of the county. It is more or less sterilised, and the planning regulator is butting in again. He wants to sterilise more of it.

I have nothing against the Ukrainians or any people coming into this country but surely the Government should make the same attempt for our own people in Killarney who have been on the list for 13, 14 or 15 years. That is the God's gospel truth. Families that are on the list for nine or ten years are thrown off it because they exceed the €33,600 limit. I have asked the Government to raise that cap. What house could be built with an income of €33,600? One could not build a henhouse to be honest. In the tenant purchase scheme the Government has in place, no one can built a house that is built after 2015. God almighty, someone may want to buy out a rural cottage that is built on their own land when they get on their feet but the Government has disallowed that. The money acquired from the tenant purchase scheme used to go into doing up voids. We have no money to do up voids in County Kerry. That is the God's gospel truth.

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