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

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this important motion before the Dáil. I remind the Labour Party, the hurlers on the ditch who criticise me for not declaring an interest, that I declare an interest in the whole housing situation because it is a business that I have been involved in for many decades.

I will not be accused of being a critic of Sinn Féin because I am not. I have been great friends with present and past Sinn Féin members. I always like telling it as it is. Standing here tonight, supporting a motion by Sinn Féin, which I am glad to do, while I do not say this in an argumentative way and am not being aggressive about it, if I do not understand something, I will ask the question. I am still not able to get my head around why TDs in Sinn Féin are using their positions to obstruct, object, hold up and stop developments in their own constituencies. How can a Teachta Dála stand in this Chamber, having written an objection against 250 or 350 houses? We have Members of Sinn Féin who have objected to 2,800 houses being built in their own constituency. I am not able to understand that. I will call it out here, in County Kerry and around the country. Why do Sinn Féin Members object to houses being built? You cannot talk out of both sides of your mouth. If you want affordable houses, you have to encourage the building of houses. How any person who is elected, whether to a local authority, Dáil Éireann or the Seanad, can realistically expect to be taken seriously when he or she is objecting to houses being built is something I cannot understand. I have to say that. At the same time, I am supporting Sinn Féin's motion because there are very good points in it. I ask Sinn Féin in a nice way to please stop objecting to people having family homes for themselves by desisting from objecting to their planning applications in the first place. That is the first thing I have to get out of the way.

We have a serious housing and affordability crisis. We have seen the Tánaiste promise to deliver 50,000 affordable houses at prices of less than €250,000. That promise has been broken for a long time because there is no such thing as affordable houses on the market anymore. It does not matter now whether someone is a teacher or a garda, which are the types of jobs that at one time would ensure people could go to their local bank manager and buy or build a house. They cannot do that anymore. For people in the countryside who want to build their own home, have a site and are able to get a mortgage, the first problem they have is getting planning permission. What is one of the biggest reasons for objections to planning permissions in rural areas? It is Green Party policies, which are ably supported by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. The Green Party has to be called out on that.

We have instances in rural Ireland where we have serial objectors. It is bad enough to be a person objecting to one house. I am not criticising genuine objections but when there are people with 20, 30 or 40 objections on the go at the same time, that has to be called out for what it is. It is abnormal behaviour and has to be called out as that. It is not natural, right or proper. Why would anybody want to interfere with somebody else's business? The idea of being able to object to something that is very far away from you is an issue. Only a development that affects you, your own property or your very near vicinity is one that a person, in normal ways of life, should be interested in objecting to or having concerns about. Why would a person up the country want to object to something in Kerry, a place that person might never have gone to or visited? Why should that person even have the right to object? I will always uphold people's right to object if they have a genuine concern about their own situation. Why is it right that we have a free-for-all for a dirty, rotten, miserable €20, where people can come along and spoil other people's hopes, dreams and aspirations of having their own house? That is wrong.

For another €200, objectors can hold up a project indefinitely by sending it off to Van Diemen's Land - An Bord Pleanála. An Bord Pleanála has to be called out tonight for what it does. It sends an inspector to look at a job. The inspector can write up a positive report. It goes before the board. Do not think that the board is some big, grand thing, when it might be two other people at a meeting. Those two people would not have visited the site. They can use their vote to object and the whole planning permission is upscuttled and people lose their shirt and a heap of paper.

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