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

I am glad to get an opportunity to say a few words about the late, great Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. He was a great Kerryman who had a unique voice and created excitement in all the games he commentated on. It was better to listen when he commentated on the radio than to watch the game on the television because there was more drama. He created excitement and he knew so much about hurling and football, the players who were playing, the rules and so forth. He was a powerhouse of a man. We send our condolences to his wife Helena and his family, his extended family in Dingle and all his friends in Kerry, around the country and across the whole world. He was a powerful man.

I will also say a word about Deputy Michael McGrath who is departing for Europe. It is Europe's gain and our loss that he is leaving this Chamber because we all depended and relied on him so much.

I sympathise with Natasha O'Brien, who had to come here today, on the horrible treatment she has been receiving.

I raise again issues about people who try to provide a home for themselves, which is a basic thing. Many of those who try to get planning permission are being refused because there is a designation in Kerry - I am sure it is also in place around the country - with regard to areas designated as being under significant urban-generated pressure. It is denying people from building on an acre or two close to where they were bred, born and reared. It is also designed to stop people coming out from towns and cities. It is being applied 4 or 5 miles outside Killorglin and Killarney. A girl who wants to build beside her father and mother 7 miles east of Killarney will not get permission to do so even though she got a site only half a mile from where she was born and reared. The only people who get it - we are glad they do - are farmers' sons and daughters. Local people are being denied by this rule. We do not begrudge the sons and daughters of farmers because we need them to have a house, in the same way as anyone else.

I will mention another issue that I have raised several times before. If you live alongside a national primary road and you want to build a new house that comes out using an existing entrance or exit, permission will be refused forthwith. It is the same for national secondary roads. In County Kerry, we have 98 km of national primary roads and 337 km of national secondary roads. I believe we have more than many other counties. The Planning Regulator has now come back to Kerry County Council asking the elected members in the Kenmare electoral area to reduce the amount of land they have proposed to zone as residential in south Kerry in the towns of Kenmare, Sneem, Waterville, Cahersiveen, Valentia, Glenbeigh and Killorglin.

I believe the Planning Regulator is wrong, as if there is no competition in the market and lesser amounts of lands are zoned available, it will mean certain landowners will have a monopoly and can drive up the cost of a site or sites. These things have to be rectified.

We are talking of affordable homes. If the word "affordable" was a concrete block, it would build a building as tall as the Empire State Building in America, because the word has been mentioned so often. These people have a site they get from their parents or locally. It is affordable and gives them a start. We have to do something to give them a chance. The blockage at present is hurting so many sons and daughters who want to get going.

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