Danny Healy-Rae backs bill to fast-track rural infrastructure
Danny Healy-Rae addresses the Dail in support of a government bill to speed planning and delivery of infrastructure. He says Kerry has been starved of basic services-water, treatment plants and local roads-and urges the legislation be given a chance to work.
Danny Healy-Rae speaks in the Dail to give the government the benefit of the doubt and to support a motion intended to speed up planning and infrastructure delivery. He states he will back the bill to see if it helps counties like Kerry which he says have been waiting too long.
Healy-Rae outlines specific local problems: Kenmare without a public water supply, towns and villages lacking adequate treatment plants, and places like Scartaglin Currow and Beaufort sending sewage into Killarney. He argues these basic services have been neglected while new regulations and delays have compounded the problem.
He highlights procedural obstacles: long judicial reviews, protracted analysis and environmental objections that, he says, effectively delay projects and incur costs. He stresses that debating the precise location of works in this chamber should not be allowed to hold up urgent local projects.
Healy-Rae urges patience to allow the bill to operate but says he will return to hold the government to account if it fails. He frames the vote as a test: an opportunity to accelerate work by Irish Water and local authorities and address the backlog of hundreds of road and local improvement schemes in Kerry.
Support for the bill
Danny Healy-Rae speaks in the Dail to give the government the benefit of the doubt and to support a motion intended to speed up planning and infrastructure delivery. He states he will back the bill to see if it helps counties like Kerry which he says have been waiting too long.
Local needs in Kerry
Healy-Rae outlines specific local problems: Kenmare without a public water supply, towns and villages lacking adequate treatment plants, and places like Scartaglin Currow and Beaufort sending sewage into Killarney. He argues these basic services have been neglected while new regulations and delays have compounded the problem.
Barriers to progress
He highlights procedural obstacles: long judicial reviews, protracted analysis and environmental objections that, he says, effectively delay projects and incur costs. He stresses that debating the precise location of works in this chamber should not be allowed to hold up urgent local projects.
Consequences and next steps
Healy-Rae urges patience to allow the bill to operate but says he will return to hold the government to account if it fails. He frames the vote as a test: an opportunity to accelerate work by Irish Water and local authorities and address the backlog of hundreds of road and local improvement schemes in Kerry.
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Transcript
I'm glad to get the opportunity to say a few words on this motion or bill and at the outset I want to give the government the benefit of the doubt because for too long this country has been starved of infrastructure and we're strangled as we are and tied down and I can't see that this amendment by long are insisting that we have to go through this chamber and I realize all the different political views that different members have from different counties and I couldn't see that we'd finish up with agreement here on anything important that we need for our counties and each of us would be fighting our own corner and which we'd be well entitled to do and each and every one of you but for my part anyway Kerry has been starved for the need of an awful lot of infrastructure. For instance in Kinmear at the present time we haven't a public water supply. For instance many towns and villages haven't an adequate treatment plant system and there's villages without any treatment plant like Scottadine and Cora where they're drawing the sewage into Killarney like Beaufort, the same story, drawing it into Killarney and we've all these places without any treatment plant and the most way these things can be hurried on and Irish Water have a lot of work to do but we can't be seen to hold them up here inside and have a debate whether it should be in Beaufort or Brosna vis-a-vis some place in Limerick or Cork and like we're behind in so many ways now for a country that's forced to bring in every type of new regulation we're behind in many critical infrastructural projects that are needed and even for some of the basic local improvement schemes we're way behind in Kerry because we've 560 or 70 roads on the list yet and people appreciate the last half mile to their door or the last quarter mile. You can be doing all the motorways and all the national secondary and national primary roads but if the road to the door isn't good and I say to you here inside that the people of Kerry and the people in rural Ireland are entitled to a road to their door good every bit as much as the people in Dublin for and look I can't support this amendment tonight or I won't because we've been waiting for so long there's judicial reviews and analysing and scrutinising and we're paying environmental objectors money each year to object to things that's the actual truth of it and you can move you couldn't build a he knows now anywhere but some fella put in an objection and he could be a hundred miles away from me Look John Corley I'm glad to get the opportunity I will be supporting the government on this and if it isn't working I hope I'll be back here telling you that it isn't working but we'll give you the chance to put this bill forward to see would it help us because we are in a desperate way and people that need planning are waiting much too long and it's time to do something about it this has been promised for a long time and I hope it works and I hope for the government's sake it works as well