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

I would like to have been here earlier but I could not because I cannot manage bilocation. I was talking about this mighty 726-page document to Matt Cooper on the radio and could not say to Matt that I had to go to the Minister. However, I am here now. I have my own views on the document, with its 136 pages of amendments. How could any Government seriously think condensing this debate into three hours tonight is fair, right or proper, or does justice to the people? It is not right and I do not agree with it.

Let me address what I do not even want to call a positive side but what is a reality because the Government did not have any choice regarding the LNG facility and its inclusion in the Bill. The Bill is very serious but the LNG aspect is one aspect that is welcome. However, like everything, it does not go far enough. The Green Party made all the members of the Government drop the ball and take the matter out of the programme for Government in 2016, take it away in 2020 and, not only that, vote against it and put in informal objections. A senior Minister put in an objection, which I thought was an outrageous act against the people of north Kerry considering the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, had gone up to places like Tarbert and Moyvane and made promises to the people that if they voted for him and his candidate, he would deliver an LNG facility. What did he do? He ripped it out of the programme for Government, backed the Green Party, including Eamon Ryan, and let the people of all the region go to blazes. He did not consider the issue of energy security, and that is why we finished up where we were last year, when levels were dangerously low. Motor cars were going to run out and we barely survived. We are in a position that is a little better this year, although only a little.

What is being proposed now is a storage facility to give us a supply for a number of days. Anything like that is welcome, of course. I say to the people of Tarbert and the surrounding region that this is positive but that it is the only positive in this 736-page Bill. It is on green paper and is green in more than one sense of the word.

The people I have great admiration and respect for are the local democrats, the men and women who put their names on the ballot paper for local election and get elected to their local authorities. Their value in Irish politics is completely underestimated.

It is more than a full-time job to any one of them. The role they perform is important. I know the Minister respects that. I presume the vast majority of us served our time on our local authorities. I did not just like my local authority, I adored it. I cherished every day I was there. I really valued the role of a local politician in formulating local area plans and the county development plan.

If you study this Bill, you will see that what it is doing, in a way, is giving the real power to the Minister of the day, whoever that Minister is. You can imagine the situation that leads to when a person such as the present Minister, who is completely anti-rural and negative in his outlook on everything, is in charge. He proved that when he objected to the LNG facility in the Shannon Estuary. We need to tackle the problems that are there at present. Probably the most serious problem we have - many urban-based politicians do not understand it - arises when a young man, lady or couple come together and want to build a house in the countryside. From what I have seen in the last 25 or 30 years from politics in Kerry, it has gotten harder and harder. The bar has been raised continuously when it comes to getting planning permission, whether it is the percolation criteria or the views and prospects.

A very intelligent professor who came to Kerry County Council once made a statement that has stuck with me to this day. He said he had worked in the Céide Fields and all that. One of the things he said at the end of the meeting was that he respects all species, including the human species. However, there are politicians and people in government who seem to think that everything is important except the human beings who keep them in a job, keep the Government going and pay taxes. We treat those people with disrespect. I do not see any hope, relaxation or glimmer of light for the people on the Ring of Kerry road, the N69 and other roads who have been told by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, that they cannot have an entrance onto the road. They are being told they cannot have an entrance even though they are going out onto these roads anyway. People in Killarney might want to build in Aghadoe or move out of the town. Members of the young generation who might want to move to the countryside and rear their families cannot do so because they cannot prove a tie or a need to live in the countryside. How criminal an offence is it to want to live in the countryside? It is not. We have to allow people to live in places where they want to, within reason. We know we cannot have a free-for-all, but we are not looking for that. We are looking for common sense and we want common sense to prevail. We want farmers' sons and daughters to have planning. Even if you can be given consideration under the current county development plans, the criteria that are still there are so stringent and so strict that they are beyond belief. Rather than people looking at how they can help and assist, we are trying to come up with what obstacles can be put in a person's way.

I have not even started to talk about the issue we spoke about this morning, which of course is the serial objectors. We made the tie very clearly this morning between serial objectors and members of An Taisce. That is a fact. It is a proven fact in places such as County Kerry. It is abnormal behaviour to have one individual - I know the Leas-Cheann Comhairle took exception to me this morning, but I do not mind that because that is politics-----

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