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

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on the Bill. I thank Sinn Féin, and Deputy Ó Broin in particular, for affording us this time to speak on housing. Certainly, housing for people who do not have homes is very important. We need to discuss all aspects of housing.

I do not agree with the Bill. It is basically a Bill for Dublin rather than one for rural Ireland. Maybe it is a more dominant issue for Dublin than it is for rural Ireland. The Bill will not sort the problem we have with housing. The way to sort the problem is to build more houses and to keep doing so. The local authorities should be afforded money to build houses, like they always did in the past, rather than having all these other schemes.

In Kerry, we are glad that in the past few days several houses have come on stream in Killarney. We thank Kerry County Council for building those houses in a very short time. They are very welcome indeed. I thank the likes of Michael Cronin - or Mike Jack, as we call him in Kerry - for all the houses he has built in Killarney and Milltown for Clúid. We should also recognise the great work KPH Construction is doing in Barraduff. More funding needs to be given to local authorities, however.

I will take one aspect of housing in Kerry that is under pressure. There are so many voids but the local authority is not getting the money to turn them around. When the tenant purchase scheme was operating properly, the money Kerry County Council got from selling a house to a tenant went straight into voids. That is not happening any more because the tenant purchase scheme was not fit for purpose in the first place, with the 80% figure. Even the new tenant purchase scheme is not a proper scheme.

Many landlords do not want to let long term for various reasons. Between finding or building a house and paying for it, there is a lot of trouble involved in acquiring a house. It should surely be the right of the person who owns the house to do whatever they want with it. They may want to let it for a few months in the short term. I know many landlords or people who own houses who rent them for a few months and are glad of the few bob. I met a couple the other day who are letting their property for the legal 90 days. They are going to live with her mother for the 90 days. They are letting the house because they want to put money aside to send their youngsters to college. God almighty, they should not be stopped from doing that. They are a very respectable and honourable couple but they were encountering problems with letting the house. I hope it is sorted now.

The visitors who come to rural Ireland for a few months mean a lot to the local economy in rural places such as Gneevguillia, Scartaglin and Kilgarvan.

It boosts the local pub or shop. That means something. We should not deprive those people of that. The other thing is these visitors want to experience rural areas. They perhaps left cities and hotels and gave half their life living in those very bright-light urban areas and want to experience a local place. If we hurt those people who operate what they call this Airbnb system, it would be wrong.

The other thing is that a Bill like this is not enforceable. On asking the local authorities to monitor this, I know and respect the local authority we are dealing with in Kerry and they have enough to do. Their outlook should be to provide housing and that is what they want to do, rather than monitoring this situation and sending out enforcement letters and whatever. They have enough to do besides doing that.

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