Danny Healy-Rae Blasts Wasteful Spending and Costly Cycle Lanes

Yes, this island has been thrown into this unfortunate position that we find ourselves now, but I suppose what we're hoping is that our government can deal with this effectively and efficiently, and we're a small nation, but we have a lot going for us too, and we need to get our act together, and I suppose the first thing we have to cut out is spending on waste and ridiculous things that are not of significant importance to the people that we're representing here in Dalian. We have been exposed, indeed, by our over-reliance on multinational companies, and we have, indeed, it has not gone unnoticed by me and many other people. Every other country in Europe has suffered economically over the last number of years, but Ireland seems to stay riding high, and, of course, it was all down to about 25 or 30 companies that are producing, and, gladly, producing, first of all, great jobs and producing, giving great employment, and good, which effectively means higher incomes, and very good for people in the areas that are providing the employment. And we hope that Nottingham Tord happens to workers, and, and, because families depend on workers, and a whole lot of families, and, and other spin-off industries depend on these high-level jobs that were, people were earning, where people were earning massive amounts of money, and mean so much to our economy. But, Minister, we do have to, as I said, to start, cut out waste. Gone now has to be these bicycle sheds, and all these stupid notions, that, that were costing massive amounts of money, and people getting no real benefit out of. And, indeed, so many people have been advised to go electric with everything, and that's fine, if it makes common sense, but, how to say, enticing people are, are telling them to do this and do that, and when it, when it's hurting them, going to hurt them economically. When we're told to go electric, no one told us that the cost of electricity was going to go up like it has gone, and it's a massive noose around everyone's neck. And since today, by the morning, it closed Lanesboro and, and Shannon Bridge, electricity has gone up, day after day. Not one day has it come down, and that has to be realized. And the way the minister here, the former minister now, and I don't like talking about last time we've gone, that are not here anymore to talk for themselves, but, uh, coming down on people that were cutting a bit of turf, for to keep themselves warm. I mean, how ridiculous can, can we go? And what I say to those people, whatever we'll do in this earth, we won't change the weather. I'm all about reducing emissions, if it is economically viable for people, and to make it attractive to people for doing that. But, forget about changing the weather, we're not going to change the weather, and no one here in this earth will. And, um, we can do simple things. There's people having fierce, uh, trouble, uh, putting a roof around their heads, or putting a roof over their heads. And one of the simple things in Kerry is, uh, to, to allow people to get planning. Those that want to build clothes to their own homes. Granted, it's working out for farmers, sons and daughters, but it's not working for all the other people that have land clothes, boy, and they, they want to, to, to put their, sooner, daughter, uh, allowed them to, to build a house or to be near them. There was nothing wrong with that, no, but we have a cause in, in, in, how to say, uh, insisted by the planning regulator, that, uh, urban-generated, uh, pressure. And these people are not coming out. If I was told that there was urban-generated pressure, that's to stop people coming out from an urban setup. But that's not what's happening. It's happening to the local people, who want to be locally, and to be, um, uh, and, uh, to be near their parents. And then we have something like the Rock Road in Killarney, where there's no footpaths built wider than the, the, the, the, the road for taking the cars and, and, and vehicles. Two footpaths on either side with cycle lanes. And there was a traffic count doing with these bicycles. How many, on one day, 14 bicycles travelled on that cycleway. 14 bicycles, it cost 1.2 million, and one, one of the bicycles travelled up and down there four times. He went up and down twice. So that was four traffic movements, 14 movements in, in 24 hours, uh, using the new cycle lane of the Rock Road in Killarney, and it cost 1.2 million. Thank you.