Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

They do not understand their place. I never interrupted them.

In any event, I am disappointed with the way some of the carbon tax is spent. In the name of active travel, the road into Killarney is being narrowed. The footpaths are now wider than the road and the carriageway. Wide vehicles are having serious trouble passing each other at Fossa, where the great Cliffords who shook Croke Park in the middle of the summer come from. Sadly, our road is being narrowed in the name of active travel and climate change. What has the narrowing of the road in Fossa have to do with the weather? It has not a God's thing in the world to do with changing the weather, keeping the weather or anything to do with the weather. Those are the facts. I have a difficulty when I see the hard-earned money people have to pay when buying fuel at the pumps being wasted and thrown around like that. These footpaths just finish up, and they to nowhere then. You are only codding people that there is a footpath because they cannot walk all the way along it. For example, you cannot walk to Killorglin. You cycle there either because there is too much traffic and the road is too narrow. There was a good cycleway, but all that has been changed at a massive cost.

There is €27.4 billion for health. I am glad of that, but we must be careful about the way it is spent. Previously, money has not been spent wisely or carefully. I do not know what is happening, but it is not meeting the needs of people who get sick. It is not meeting the needs of those who during the summer wanted to get away for a week from minding their elderly parents. These people wanted to go away with their children for just six days but there was no one to mind their parents or no respite places for them. We have few respite places in Kerry. We need to address those matters.

There are waiting lists for people to get into Tralee hospital, into the district hospital in Killarney, into the facilities in Kenmare, Dingle and Cahersiveen and into St. Columbanus Home. I was disappointed at a meeting of the health committee last week when a Deputy frightened the daylights out of the people with disabilities when stating that St. Mary of the Angels, in which there are 54 patients, is being sold. I got a letter from St. John of God saying that it is not being closed. I want clarification on that from the Minister for disabilities. I want to know where that story came from, because it has hurt parents and patients. I want the matter clarified and I want what is going on to be explained. It is very unfair to hurt people in that category. I refer to people who are disabled and who may have been disabled all of their lives. It is wrong to do that. We need to keep St. Mary of the Angels open. We need a lot more facilities like it in order to help those people. I have seen patients with disabilities being told that the only place they will get residential care is in County Meath. Imagine that - sending them all the way from Killarney to County Meath. Now we are being told by a certain Deputy - who is frightening people again - that St. Mary of the Angels is to be sold. That is very wrong. I want that statement retracted in order that we can give confidence to the parents and patients that it is not being sold.

I am grateful to thank the Minister of State for recognising the players on the field who give us so much enjoyment all summer. I refer to the Kerry team, especially the likes of the Cliffords, the captain of the Kerry team from Killarney and all those players gave so much to ensure that Kerry once again won the Sam Maguire. I know it will be given across the country to other players, and they deserve it because they bring people enjoyment. We look forward to watching them each year. We have to keep them going, because they have costs when it comes to getting to training, to games and so on. They need to be helped in some small way.

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