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

Regarding the €800, if the local authority rented the property from the house owner and the tenant was able to, he or she should pay according to his or her means and circumstances. I object in the strongest way to the Government's proposal that houses should be compulsorily purchased. Instead, the Government should talk to the owners and try to find out whether they would be interested or, if they had a problem, try to deal with it. The Government should certainly not go down the road of CPOs because it will turn every landowner and house owner against it. That is what owners were afraid was happening in the Dáil today. If they are banned from getting their houses back, it would be the same as an extension of going down the CPO route, which I do not want.

There is much that we can do together, that being, to explore why these houses are vacant. There are vacant houses up all the other roads around Rathmore, Scartaglin, Gneeveguilla, Brosna and Knocknagoshel. There should be no one homeless. For people who came to this country fleeing the war, we were able to help them with transport and so on. The same could be organised as well.

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