Mattie McGrath warns Planning Bill will deepen housing crisis

Apologies, that was gone out. Look, Minister, we have a book here, I can hardly lift it, there's 800 pages in it, or 750, and indeed there's another book of amendments, many of them by the Minister himself. But we're not operating in a silo here, and Count Golan is speaking to a grouping of amendments there, 195 to 196, I think, yeah, we, and other ones as well related. We're not operating in a silo, and we're talking about a housing crisis. We have a crisis of people immigrating, we have a shortage of nurses, teachers, you name it, construction workers, everything else. Now, if we think we can begin this new planning bill, we're waiting for the rural planning guidelines for 20 years to deal with people who want to build in the countryside, and they haven't been, they were promised by both Fianna Gael and Fianna Fáil before the last two elections, but the Green Party decided we couldn't have them, so there's people in limbo. I already mentioned tonight, Sean, me in case, thank you, who put his own demountable mobile log cabin, and he's been going to jail. So what are we at? So this, all these, and all the debates, and all the votes, I remember when I joined the council first, and I said I wish all the new councils the best, and indeed delighted that my own daughter Maureen is re-elected to the county council, and a fabulous vote, and we want you people to come into politics, as well as every other career, but if they're going to be, the powers are going to be taken away from them, their hands tied behind their back, and they're blindfolded, and then we never had, we dealt with the county manager, and we dealt with the county development plans, and then the county manager back and forth, and you lost so many gains, but there was practical work there, but now we have the office of the planning regulator, and we have the, the, the, the, the, all those layers, put in, hop again, total and absolute control of people, total and absolute control of people, and most of these amendments that we voted, and you voted down, are controlling people. As I said, when I built my house, tanked around in 82 or 83, I got planning, and we dug two test holes, and filled them with water, and they were proper percolation, and they had a septic tank, and, and my wife and eight children lived in it, and there were just grandchildren in common as well, and the septic tank is working perfect, probably been emptied eight times, but I've emptied tanks, and I'm in that business, I was in that business, I emptied septic tanks, so constructed by hand, and maybe in the 60s, and you couldn't empty, they were so perfectly, and six, 40 years later, they were emptied, but they were perfectly, now you have all kinds of percolation tests, and I'm all for, I'm insuring, and it's always every householder, for insuring that simply tanked books to write, because they're the first person to suffer, but now you've all these kinds of stringent tests, and the new systems with, with, with, with the propellers, and the edger tests, and the electricity, and the power goes out, as it did in my home last night, for hours, and it goes out for a very little time, after bearing season, these, they do, and they, it costs the fortune to try and run them, so I mean, all these modern-made things, are not half as good, for helping the environment as they were, many of the, of the, of the ghosts that say, who were left with, had some of these big package plants, and there's still a problem, I have one in, in, in, in, in, in the hotel tonight, in the Lynn Hotel in Tipperary, where the developers have bought it, the crowd had it left, there's 20 residents an hour more, and sewer's thrown down the road over the last month, six weeks, Irish water won't touch it, the county council won't touch it, and, uh, people living in those kind of conditions, so, we're making all these regulations, so we're making it impossible, for Irish people, lindini oge, uh, to live, and work, and, and, and enjoy the island that, uh, was fought for our freedom daily, back in the, in the, in, in 1916, and the 20s, and 22s, what are they doing, they're voting with their feet, they're immigrating, they can't, like, they can't work within, you know, they can't drive, just you penalise them for the Greens, especially, with carbon tax, and then, they can't want to go to build a house, not a whole, they can't buy a house in the village, because my village, as well as 30 other villages in Tipperary, I won't call them plants, because they're not plants, that they're just septic tanks, big septic tanks, about four or five times, six times the size of an ordinary one, are, are full capacity, and they can't build in the village, they, they're chugged into the towns, they can't get a house in the towns, they can't afford them, and, in my area, they're competing in the country, but they're buying up houses as well, so, it's all, if you step back and study this, and we can talk here forever, they've just not been allowed, so, they're going to Dubai, as they believe, they're going to Australia, and Canada, and everything else, and, when they come back, they're going to the INTO today, if they come back, then, they've graded walk over there, and, with their workers respected, the teachers, come back here, then, they won't get those, kind of, level jobs, and they won't be able to get a wage, that's sufficient for them to live, or get a house, or get on the ladder, even, so, we have a very serious situation, and this huge planning bill here, is not going to help that one bit, won't help any, for the building, it'll make it harder, and, and, and more difficult, now, I don't, uh, deny, and, unlike other people, I say, people should have a right to object, yes, but, within reason, but, you have to have, I have an opportunity for people to do that, but, when we make it so difficult, here, for people to get planning, and live in their house, or live in the country, as I said, Sean's cabin, for instance, and it's hard to bring them to jail, put them to jail, and demolish his cabin, and send him to build a pensioner, and he's going to go on the housing list, we already have 4,000 on the housing list in Clannmel, and that's what he's going to do, so, there's no giant uptinking whatsoever, and it's the same with many other areas, it is, environmental laws, and, indeed, all other kinds of laws, and, then, all of a sudden, we can make new legislation, emergency legislation, to deal with the Ukrainians, and we're welcome, and they are welcome, and, then, we can extend it for two more years, and they can be tonight, under huge duress, and trauma, and stress, with, with, um, with security forces from outside the state, and the Gardaí assisting them, to put in modular homes, 62 of them, just like that, and evicted another man from his, just logic, the fellas with the white coats, they should come here very soon, and bring us all away, because we're making the situation much worse, for many more people, and anybody looking in, with an objective idea, would say, this place is done in modular, and I think it is, thank you.