Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

I thank Deputy Gould and Sinn Féin for tabling this very important motion. There is no shadow of a doubt that houses in the local authorities are taking too long to turn around. There was one house in Killarney I fought tooth and nail over. From the day it first came up here, it took over five years to get that house in Marian Terrace turned around. There was vermin and everything else gone into it.

I was shocked the other day to hear the Taoiseach say a house should only take four or five days to turn around. He is right that maybe that is what it should take, in some instances, like the two houses in Kilgarvan that people left a few months ago. What happened then? Some crew came along, took off the roof, took out the chimney and they are still at it, putting in an underground heat pump or whatever it is. The houses are riddled. Under my own nose in Kilgarvan village, that is what is going on. It is wasting money. I believe the two houses will cost more than €100,000 each to turn around. They are gone over now to another village in east Kerry and they went around to 18 houses to tell them they are fitting heat pumps. This is a waste of money when there are other houses to be turned around. It is wasting good money. One poor woman rang me and said "Danny, they're talking of taking out my little fireplace and taking down the chimney. That's all I have after all my years and I want my little fire." I have been on to Kerry County Council. This is wasting money, while other houses around the parish and around different parishes in Kerry are having no work done to them. That is ridiculous. It is taking 64 weeks to turn around a house in Kerry and the Taoiseach thinks it will only take five days.

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