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

I thank the Independent Group for bringing forward this motion on levies. Levies are always a contention. There are different aspects of levies but they are contentious for people who do not see the benefits of the levies after paying them. We all know now that levies, service charges and connection fees make up almost half the cost of building a house. This is stopping young fellas from building their own houses. It is costing €140,000 to €150,000 between levies, connection fees, VAT and you name it. This is stopping people. It is stopping small developers. Connection fees from Irish Water are exorbitant and it is costly for developers to put in a sewerage connection and water connections for a small number of houses. I have to talk about places like Scartaglin. It has no treatment plant. Myself and Tom Fleming were councillors at the time and we had Scartaglin up to number three on a list for a programme to be done and there it is still with no treatment plant. Likewise, Currow has no treatment plant. Those communities cannot develop or grow. Then there is Castleisland. I found documents belonging to my late father fighting for an extension to the sewer in Castleisland going back to 1986. Can the Minister of State imagine that? They were at it even before that. That is almost 40 years.

Then there are ridiculous things happening, like in Killarney where there is serviced land but it will not be built on because it is not in the current zoning. There is also a scenario where a local farmer who never asked for his land to be zoned has had it zoned and he wants to continue farming. There are things like that. There is a lot of talk about housing up here in Dublin and I do not mind people doing that but we have to fight our own corner. There are 171 vacant houses in the county of Kerry, going back two, three or even four years. If the Government is serious about building houses or providing houses for people, there are 33 houses vacant in Killarney. There are three houses vacant in Gneeveguilla, right around the circuit, and the Government is talking about building houses.

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