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

At the outset, in the interests of transparency, I just want to say that I house Ukrainian families, including moms, dads and children, as I do a lot of Irish people. I just want to put that on the record. I am totally horrified that any person's property would be burned. It is an act of wanton vandalism that should in no way be tolerated. We cannot, however, compare that to the people who were at the meeting in Killarney. Some 300 or 400 genuine, hard-working people came to a meeting to discuss concerns they had. All of them were taxpayers. These are honest, upstanding people in Killarney town. The reason they came to that meeting was to talk about their issues. They had issues and they wanted to hear from the Government. They wanted to hear facts.

To get to the truth of the story, I will use one example. I refer to the Government going into Roscrea and taking over an operating hotel. Having created a problem, the Government then came along and said it would buy a hotel that was closed for 12 years, open it up and give it back to the community. Would it not have made more sense to have bought that building in the first instance and used it for housing the people coming in, and let the existing hotel carry on giving the excellent service it was giving? Is it any wonder that people have concerns? It is not possible, though, to compare those with concerns to thugs and people who damage property.

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