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

I was always brought up to mean what I say or say what I mean. There are so many contradictions in these amendments proposed by Members. Some of the amendments are good and some are terrible. Both kinds have been tabled by the same Members. We have been promised for years now, since I was elected in 2016, that the planning framework guidelines would be put in place to help planning and help people achieve planning permission to build homes for themselves. Some Members have tabled amendments supporting that idea, but they then come along with amendments that will directly hurt the notion of building a house. For example, amendment No. 210, proposed by Deputies Cian O'Callaghan, Ó Broin, Gould and Ó Snodaigh, references:

protection and restoration of nature and biodiversity including the provision of and protection of habitats, corridors for wildlife including but not limited to hedgerows and riparian corridors, and to facilitate alignment with, and delivery of the National Biodiversity Action Plan;

This proposal will hurt people who are looking to build a home for themselves. There is an instance in Killarney where a developer wanted to build 240 or 260 homes. There was no other reason for refusal of planning permission other than those houses would be in the way of bats. I ask those people who refused planning permission why the bats could not go around the housing estate. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Amendment No. 211 references "the achievement of good ecological status in water bodies", while at the same time we have treatment plants all over County Kerry that are substandard. People are being told they cannot build in rural areas because that would interfere with their designation as being under strict urban-generated pressure. The people I mentioned to the Minister, even when they achieved the proper standard of septic tank or method of dealing with waste out of a proposed house, were shot down. They were told they are in an area that is designated as being under strict urban-generated pressure. This is so, even though they never left an urban setting but, rather, want to build next door to where they were brought up and reared and want to be next door to their parents to help them in older life.

At the same time, people are being told they must go into towns and villages in rural areas. In places such as Moyvane, people are told they cannot build one other house because the treatment plant is not able to deal with it as it does not have the capacity. There is no talk about that by many Members. They do not want to hear it. They do not want to talk about the problems that are under the ground. At the same time, treatment plants in those urban settings are damaging and hurting our waters. They cannot have it every way. When people are told they cannot build in a town or village or in the part of the country where they come from, where does the Minister of State expect them to go? Is it under a bush? We are even being told that people must having planning permission for a mobile home or demountable home. They must have planning permission for that or for a modular home.

It is no wonder people are emigrating. I want the Minister of State to listen to me because those very people who are asking for nothing but planning permission are being denied it. They have no options. The only place they can go is somewhere like Killarney. Even Kenmare is under pressure. It is not rectified yet. Killorglin is also under pressure, but at the same time the very same people are being told they cannot build four or five miles from either town. They just cannot get permission. What they are doing, our own people of 28 to 32 years of age, is emigrating. I will say it again. Teachers, nurses and professional people are going to Dubai because they cannot see a way they can build a home for themselves. They are going to Australia and Canada. The Government will say, and is saying, that they will go and come back. What will they come back to? We even have a situation now where nurses want to come home but cannot apply for jobs with the HSE because there is an embargo. We are telling them to come home but where will they get planning permission? Where will they work?

The Government is totally against young people trying to build homes for themselves. Both issues are entwined. There is nothing at all in this Bill - I do not know how many pages are in it - to assist people to build a house for themselves. These are people who would build a house, pay for it, and create employment, yet we cannot or will not give them planning permission. This is all a total mess. It is a shambles. There is nothing in the Bill to help people who are looking for planning permission.

See this speech in context