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

I welcome this debate and thank Sinn Féin for bringing it forward but I also want to highlight one issue. Sinn Féin has made 11 points in the motion being debated tonight but I would like it if it had 12. The thing I would like to see Sinn Féin highlighting is its own contribution to the housing crisis. I will give an example. Between objecting to zoning and objecting to planning applications, it has objected to 5,121 units of housing in 18 votes in Dublin City Council alone. Its representatives have made objections in Mayo and Wicklow and to 853 units on Oscar Traynor Road, 768 units at O'Devaney Gardens and 1,500 units in the Fingal County Council area. They only objected to 1,200 units in Donabate. Sinn Féin representatives have also made objections to 500 social, affordable and private houses in Tallaght. One TD here has objected to more than 2,000 units while another has objected to five developments comprising a total of 1,102 build-to-rent residential homes. An awful lot of houses they are objecting to are social and affordable. I have asked Sinn Féin Members about this before. They know I am not a critic of their party. I am not. I look at every group and thank them for their contribution. However, Sinn Féin is talking about housing here and there are people on the other side of the Chamber who shout about housing an awful lot as well but, if you look at what they do at home in their own constituencies, you will see they continuously object to people zoning land to build houses on and to actual planning applications. An awful lot of these TDs and county councillors are from Sinn Féin but it is not an exclusive Sinn Féin club. There are people in other parties, again including those on the other side of the House, who also object. I am not able to understand that.

If there is something wrong with me and if I am wrong, I would like somebody to stand up tonight, criticise me and say why I am wrong. If the Minister of State thinks I am wrong, I would like him to tackle me. I would like somebody to give out to me and to say I am wrong and that every time he or she objected to zoning or people putting a roof over their head that he or she was right and that those people should not have had their house. If somebody can put that argument up to me, I will debate it with him or her any day of the week. It would be some day in hell before I objected to anybody having a roof over his or her head.

I will give a good big clap on the back to any developers or people who have the - I will not say what - to build houses. If they can go to the local authority and convince it to zone land, more good to them. There is nothing wrong with that. It is not a dirty word. There is nothing wrong with being a building contractor with "building contractor" written on the side of your van and being out at 6 a.m. How are we going to have homes? How are we going to have places for people to live if they are not allowed to get planning permission? There are people pontificating in here every night. You would get sick of it. They are continuously on about this but, when they go home, they bring out a piece of paper and write a big long objection about overshadowing somebody else or doing one thing or another. Jesus and God almighty, it would drive you into the mental home. I really have to condemn it in the strongest possible way.

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