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

I thank Raise the Roof and compliment it on its efforts. I hope I can add to its call to help. The Government's focus at present seems to be totally on Airbnb. The Government thinks that will sort out the issue. There are people who want to let their houses short-term and they will not let them long-term. The Government cannot make them do otherwise with any law it brings in. The fact that in our local authority last October we had 162 vacant houses, many of which have not been brought up to the standard at which they can be allocated, says something. The Government needs to do something about that. It needs to give the local authorities adequate funding to bring such houses back to the standard it is asking the local authorities to bring them to. Today I was told about a Kerry local authority house still vacant after four and a half years in the heart of Killarney, with briars growing in around the windows and the doors. I got a call about it because there are now vermin perching there and threatening the people next door. Householders and landlords want to get out of letting properties. Why? That is the big question. There is a reason, and the Government has to suss it out because many of them are getting out. The Government cannot make them stay because they have problems. As for planning permission in the Killarney electoral area, where people want to build homes themselves and put a roof over their heads, half the total area of the electoral area is sterilised on one side by the national park, where people cannot build, coming out onto the national secondary roads from Rathmore to Killarney to Killorglin, and from the county bounds into Killarney. We are waiting for a bypass for Killarney. All that land is sterilised from Farranfore through the heart of Kilcummin. People just cannot get planning permission to put a roof over their heads.

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