Brian Stanley
Laois · Independent · Ireland
“We are going through an epidemic of domestic abuse and violence. In 2025, the Garda had over 67,000 calls in relation to domestic abuse. Seven women were murdered last year, and in many of those cases, it was by a family member, a partner or somebody known closely to the victim.”
“Those fundamentals cannot be ignored. Are supporters of partition really saying that we can continue on this small island with 14 different departments in each jurisdiction working back to back, often in competition with each other? Are they saying that having Twenty-six Counties in the EU and Six Counties out of it makes economic sense?”
“Those who still argue for partition ignore the fact that in a reunified 32-county state, the pension liabilities of those workers in the Six Counties who accrued pension entitlements by paying into the British national insurance system and the British exchequer or employment pensions would receive that portion of their pension liability.”
“Unfortunately, I do not get any sense of urgency from the Minister of State that we are going to have laws introduced in September or October, and that is the crucial issue. Yes, we have rules now, and she listed them out in relation to the signs. However, they are being ignored.”
“The cost is €2.6 billion for the diplomatic mission alone. There is also MI6 and the massive military machine and capacity, including the army, the navy and the Royal Air Force. I saw a figure of €60.2 billion for 2025 and 2026. That amount is due to rise sharply to meet its increased military capabilities.”
“The issue I am raising with the Minister of State is the increase in the number of injuries, including those involving young children, relating to e-scooters and e-bikes. Ten have been killed.”
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“Importantly, in villages people also have access to utilities, which also reduce a person’s carbon footprint about which we are all concerned. One-off housing does not have that. I am not against one-off housing. In general, I support what is being done in relation to the policy on those who genuinely need to live in a rural area. However, we need to be careful not to cover the whole place with unnecessary rural housing. I am arguing instead to consolidate the cores of villages. This needs the councils to zone land close to the centre of villages. There cannot be leapfrogging. There are too many examples of leapfrogging over the years where ten fields have been missed and then half a mile up the road there is a new housing estate with no footpath, no public lighting and a long distance to connect sewers.”
“Too many of our villages have been hollowed out due to a lack of new housing and opportunities to live in them. There are huge benefits to living in a rural village. Young people can walk to school and people can walk to the local pub, church or sports field. In nearly all villages, there is now a bus link and that is important. If we can consolidate the cores of villages and get people living in them, children can walk to school and people can walk to the local shop, pub, church or sports field. As I said, most villages have at least a limited bus service and that reduces the need to always use a car. In villages people have neighbours and family support, often nearby. If a person needs home help services when they get elderly, it is easier to provide it in villages than it is way out in the countryside.”
“We do not want a turbo-charged bungalow blitz, although we want to facilitate those who genuinely need to live in a rural area. If we want to do rural development properly, we must build up and consolidate the cores of our villages. If we want to create and strengthen rural communities, we must have living villages. The Minister of State knows that in his constituency as in mine, there are many villages which are not living villages. The shop is closed and the post office, service station and Garda station are gone. If we want rural areas to play a significant role as well as address the housing crisis, we must have strong village structures. That has to be part of and central to any housing policy. I support genuine efforts to speed up the delivery of and to facilitate housing.”
“On the rural planning guidelines, in general I welcome what has been announced this week by the Minister. We do not have all the details yet. We need to be careful that we do not end up with scatters of housing all over the place. People who genuinely need to live in a rural area for work reasons or who have a family connection should be allowed to do so, subject to considerations such as environmental and planning regulations, etc. Laois County Council has operated close to that model over the years. However, it is a missed opportunity, and the Minister of State may tell me he will come back to this. If we want rural development done properly, we need to build up, along with the changes in the guidelines. As I said, we need to be careful.”
“I know the developers wanted it and the Construction Federation of Ireland has been hammering on the Minister's door for a few years to try to extract more profit. The Minister of State will say a lot more apartments are being built now but there are a lot of other reasons for that and we all know what they are. This means more profit, less space and the position of renters and people trying to buy their first home being diminished. Some 32 sq. m is awful. Some 76 sq. m for three-bedroom accommodation is awful. Has anyone here ever lived in a house of 76 sq. m? I lived in a house that was 57 sq. m and it was very small. It is 32 sq. m for a two-bedroom house. A three-bedroom house of 76 sq. m is awful. It is not fair to people. We have to start thinking about quality of life. Profit has won out in this country over everything else.”
“Fair enough, we could go to seven or eight years but ten years is a lot. It is a long time. We will finish up with an unintended consequence of material contravention to the plan having to be brought before the councils on a regular basis, as well as variations. The variation made in County Laois is a positive one. It was needed. The Department and the Government requested it and the councillors and management obliged. The councillors got it fairly right. They put a lot of work into it along with the planners. I want to highlight that. Regarding apartment sizes, what are we going to do? Are we going to keep going until we have people living in shoe boxes? Before I came in here I measured 32 sq. m in my office, so I know what it means. Part of my office in Leinster House is 32 sq. m. That is lunacy and it is really unfair.”
“Engagement with councillors is not mentioned. There was no engagement with the representative body of local government. Why was the Association of Irish Local Government not contacted? The Local Authorities Members Association was not contacted either. Year after year, with every issue and piece of legislation that has anything to do with local government, councillors are never contacted. I remember raising this kind of nonsense with Phil Hogan when he was Minister 15 years ago. Councillors were forgotten about. No one, not senior officials or anyone at a senior political level in government, thought it fit to speak to councillors. That is what it says in the briefing note and that is an omission. That is the other concern I have with ten years. I see the need for certainty. It is a six-year process at the moment.”
“We will have material contraventions, which can be carried out within the period of county development plan while awaiting a new one. I have been there for those. Two weeks ago, Laois County Council implemented a variation. I have the new plan in my office. The variation is as big as the plan. Effectively, it is a new plan. This is something that the Minister of State needs to take on board. The other thing is the role of the councillors. The briefing note from the Department outlines the engagements it had in this regard. It states, “The Department and the Minister engaged with the County and City Management Association [fair enough], the Planning, Environmental and Local Government Bar Association [that is all right too], the Irish Planning Institute and the Construction Industry Federation”.”
“If we are going to designate key towns, they must have essential services, including jobs, health and educational services, school places and sports and leisure facilities. They cannot be just a series of housing estates dropped in fields around the edges of towns. That is important. Some Deputies indicated that they welcome the certainty with the county development plan process. While I definitely do not want to be delaying these things for too long, I have concerns about the ten-year duration. I was on the council for the makings of a couple of county development plans. One problem I see with this - it could be an unintended consequence - is that we could end up with variations to county development plans.”
“We cannot have a situation where project after project is delayed unnecessarily, particularly by people who are not affected and who may be objecting for other reasons. However, I defend the right of affected parties to have the option of taking a judicial review as a last resort. That may include people who own adjoining properties but who do not live in the relevant area. More particularly, it is about those who live in the area. I support tightening this up and ensuring that it does not unduly delay projects that are badly needed. The concept of having key towns is good and makes common sense. Obviously, we do not want to see smaller towns and villages suffering as a consequence of what is being done in this regard. I will come back to that point before I finish.”
“I gave the folio number and if the staff were not able to solve the issue there and then, they came back to me within 24 hours. They never failed in that regard. They did their best. I understand that there are procedures to go through, such as the notification of interested parties or parties who may have an interest in property, but this email system is like trying to play handball against a haystack. I ask the Minister of State and his officials - it comes under the Department of local government and housing, as far as I know - to sort this out. Someone needs to do something. There are some good things in the Bill. Of course, there have been concerns about judicial reviews.”
“That landlord is long gone, and the title has to be changed into the farmer's family name. He farms the land around it. He owns that 90-acre farm, but he has to live in a town eight miles away. He is living in private rental accommodation with his young family. He is a young, active and progressive farmer, but there are constant delays with this. Solicitors are even on to us inquiring whether we can do anything about it. Something has to be done. I will provide an example. Ten years ago, whenever I had a case in Laois where there was a difficulty with registration and I needed to contact the Land Registry, I phoned the office on Cork Road in Waterford and asked to be put through to the Laois section. The phone was always answered, which was fantastic.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. I echo what the previous speaker, Deputy Nolan, said regarding Tailte Éireann and the email address we were given. Like me, the Minister of State is from a country area and will, therefore, have heard the saying, “Playing handball against a haystack”. That is what trying to deal with Tailte Éireann is like. The registration system is simply not working. I have cases, as other Deputies will have, where there are delays with registration. I would like the Minister of State and his officials to take note of this, because there is a real problem. I have a case of a young farmer who has to change the plot of land the farmhouse has been on for the past 200 years. The title is in the name of a previous landlord.”
“We need to scrap the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, as it stands or else reform it. In my time here, I have heard and seen reports from it and it is a toothless tiger. It has turned out to be useless. Last year, €9.5 billion in excess was given out but nothing happened for workers. Nothing happened to the taxation of middle-income workers, those people on between €20,000 and €70,000. They got zero. The Government should not forget about them this year. It should adjust the tax bands to favour those low- and middle-income workers and not miss the opportunity again.”
“We need to bring in a windfall tax to be imposed on the large energy companies, including the wind farm owners where there are high profits, once profits go over a certain amount. That money should be used and ploughed into retrofitting for middle-income families who do not qualify for the free scheme and cannot afford to match the funding for the other schemes. There is an opportunity here. The people in the middle are caught. If someone is on social welfare, they rightly get the free scheme for fuel allowance. People under €75,000 are caught because they cannot afford the retrofitting or the electric car. The minimum wage needs to be increased to a living wage. We need to reintroduce the rent caps for each county. We need to speed up the retrofitting of households, including with solar panels.”
“These framework agreements need to be re-examined. I hope that the Minister of State and the senior officials are listening to what I am saying because this is an important issue and I hope it is brought to the attention of the Department of education. These framework agreements need to be looked at. There are a whole lot of measures that we need to take, but an immediate step would be to extend medical card cover until we get Sláintecare. Sláintecare, and the public health system it envisions, has to be prioritised. In the short term, we need to extend medical card cover to ordinary workers and families who cannot go to doctors to get medical treatment because they cannot afford to. That will help all of those who do not have medical cards but cannot afford health insurance.”
“I will always argue for projects but we have to get value for taxpayers' money. We have IT systems that do not work. Construction projects that finish at double their budgets. There are layers upon layers of management and bureaucracy in public bodies that should be rationalised and streamlined. All of this and much more needs to be history. The Department of education has framework agreements for school projects, including school extensions. To provide an example, a two-classroom autism spectrum disorder, ASD, unit with an all-timber outside finish cost €2.7 million. Another unit 30 or 40 miles away, which I can show the Minister of State and have brought to the attention of the Department today, cost €2.05 million. It is completed in brick, is a bigger unit and has the ancillary rooms and everything else in it.”
“Rent for a two-bedroom unit in County Laois has gone up by 34% in one year. Mortgage repayments are now higher because the overall capital sum being borrowed to keep up with galloping house prices is increasing. In Laois, there has been an increase of 12%, 13% or 14% in one year. Electricity and gas prices are increasing today by 8% on top of all the recent increases. Home heating oil is up 50% or 60%. Motor fuels have increased. We had better not forget about health insurance. Health insurance, which families, households and individuals are forced to get because we have not got Sláintecare yet, is going up two and three times a year. These are huge increases of 6%, 7%, 8% or 9% each time. At the same time, public money is being wasted. State projects have cost overruns. That needs to be curtailed.”
“The cost of living is rising at an alarming rate right across the board. Middle- and low-income households cannot keep up, particularly households on below €75,000. Those on €50,000, €60,000 and €70,000 used to be counted as being well-off. They are not now. Rents, mortgages, electricity, gas, motor fuel, food, health insurance and much more have all increased, not by single figures, but by double-digit figures on every hike. Meanwhile, wages and incomes have increased by 1% or 2% or not at all. In the case of housing, rents are skyrocketing due to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's decision to remove the rent pressure zones, however meek they were. A lot of us on this side of the House wanted them nailed down tighter. The fact is their removal means double-digit increases are happening.”
“We need to reduce the bureaucracy and the volume of administration for the small private providers, while we have them. Overall, the State has to become the provider of childcare. We have to follow what is done is other EU states. We need a State-led system.”
“There is a planned reduction in September of €14.30 per month, but at that rate it would take 14 or 15 years to actually get to that reduction planned by the Government. The budget in October must see significant progress on fees, but also improvements in core funding. Progress is also required on staffing pay levels. I welcome the Government's plan for €135 million over four years to provide directly purchased, State-led buildings and childcare facilities. However, given the existing pressures in Laois and the massive population increase that is planned, at least one of these facilities needs to be put into the county each year over the next four years. As I said, wages for staff and recruitment need to be addressed. A career in childcare has to be seen as a viable one for young people. It has to be made attractive.”
“Some have no all-day provision at all, and Mountrath is losing its ECCE preschool this month, which is unfortunate. The Government wants a population increase in Laois, and that is fair enough. It wants a population increase in the county of 25% over the next four to five years moving to 35% over the next seven years or so. Laois County Council recently rezoned lands for an additional 8,200 houses to be developed over the next four years, and further increases are planned after that. As matters stand, there are already long waiting lists and a huge shortage of providers, so action is required to meet the growing demand. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael promised to reduce monthly fees to €200, but we are a long way from that.”
“The whole issue of access to affordable childcare is becoming critical for many parents. Affordability is an issue, and it is putting huge financial pressure, including a whole raft of other increasing costs, on parents. In the case of Laois, the average cost, according to the childcare committee, is €800 per month, but I have come across quotations as high as €1,400 a month. The shortage of places is the other issue and there are several blackspots across the county. In common with other counties, parents just cannot get access to childcare. According to the local childcare committee again, towns such as Portlaoise, Portarlington, Mountmellick, Mountrath, Graiguecullen, Rathdowney, Abbeyleix, Durrow, Arles and Ballylinan are short of all-day provision.”
“It also means higher insurance costs. I am asking the Taoiseach, along with the Minister for Transport, to do something about these waiting times, to shorten them and to scrap the two-stage process. It is a misleading process.”
“The waiting times for driving tests in Laois for a lot of applicants are not improving. A local woman sought a driving test back on 21 May. She had to seek an invitation. She was told that it would take ten weeks to get onto the waiting list, which would be the end of July. That has now been extended to the end of August, which is 14 weeks. She applied for the waiting time. According to the RSA website this morning, there is another 11.5 weeks on average to wait. That brings it to a total of 25 weeks, if the two periods are counted. The two stages from requesting a test to getting a test is misleading. I am asking the Taoiseach to do two things. This long wait is creating a difficulty, particularly for workers in rural areas like Rathdowney, Clonaslee, Vicarstown, The Swan, Ballinakill, Borris-in-Ossory and all those areas.”
“It is simply not enough to pay three full-time staff. While I know there will be a lot of asks in the forthcoming budget, without these centres there will be a lot more costs. I ask the Tánaiste to ensure they receive a substantial increase in core funding.”
“Family resource centres around the State do fantastic work but are under significant pressure due to rising costs and increasing demands on their services. The level of core funding is simply not keeping pace with their escalating overheads. Portlaoise and Mountmellick family resource centres are providing vital services to families that are making a real difference with services, including parenting support, youth intervention, early-year preschool services, counselling and a whole lot more. The centre in Harper's Lane in Portlaoise is providing 114 preschool places alone. However, without an increase in the forthcoming budget, family resource centres will be limited to crisis-driven reactive responses instead of more effective early interventions. The core operational budget for these centres is €180,000 per annum.”
“The lands and the extra houses in each of these areas that I mentioned are in addition to what is already under construction or what is already zoned. We need to strengthen our villages and towns. We cannot put everybody in Portlaoise. The Minister and Minister of State who visited Laois know what is happening with private, public and local authority housebuilding. They saw the figures for zoning in the plan two weeks ago. Laois is not behind the curve but we need input from the Government and Uisce Éireann.”
“I appreciate what the Minister has said about the ones being provided by developers. The Tánaiste in reply to me said a lot will be provided by developers. It is okay if this can be done but the Minister and I know that Uisce Éireann is reluctant to take in charge infrastructure provided by developers. I can show the Minister an example in Laois which has been held up because of this. There has been a lot of back-and-forth with Uisce Éireann, local authorities and the Department on this. As far as I am aware, according to the most recent information I have, that nut has not been cracked yet. The cases of Graiguecullen, Borris-in-Ossory, where I welcome the progress, and Ballinakill are all in the red. They have been labelled as red by Uisce Éireann in terms of wastewater; in other words, no development can take place.”
“One has been done in Ballyroan and I welcome this but those in Borris-in-Ossory, Ballinakill and Ballybrittas have not. They were all earmarked by Uisce Éireann. Somebody needs to intervene to tell Uisce Éireann that these need to be upgraded. In the case of Borris-in-Ossory, 160 extra houses are planned for extra land. There are 56 planned for Ballinakill and 437 for Graiguecullen. These cannot be provided without the infrastructure.”
“Where does the responsibility lie? It needs to be clearer. There was a policy decision by the Department to zone these extra lands. In the case of Laois, as the Minister knows, substantial extra lands have been zoned in the last two weeks for an increase of over 8,000 houses, which will bring an increase of approximately 25% in the population in four or five years. They cannot all be in Portlaoise. I understand, and I support it to solve the housing crisis, that we need to strengthen villages and smaller towns to provide an option for people to live in a village structure where they are close to pubs, shops, community centres and schools. This means upgrading the water system. Uisce Éireann earmarked four villages in Laois for its small villages and towns scheme.”
“There is a request, which I have no problem with, that local authorities in the wider Dublin catchment area zone land for a large increase in the population and the number of dwellings. That needs infrastructure. However, given the tight budgets that local authorities operate with, will funding be provided, particularly through Irish Water, for the infrastructure required for wastewater and water supply?”
“We clearly need action and an action plan. We need to prioritise the areas I have outlined: the public dental scheme, the schools scheme, and children and adults with special needs, particularly those who are non-verbal and need to have treatment under general anaesthetic. Other countries can do it. Other countries did it years ago. We should do it. It needs political will. It is part of Sláintecare. We should get to work on it now and waste no opportunity. As I said, I have raised this issue with five or possibly even six Ministers across four governments but we are still not there. We have ground to make up. As an Opposition TD, I would certainly support Government in this. We need to do it.”
“We are supposed to arrive at the full implementation of Sláintecare and a public health system within 18 months but, of course, we are nowhere near that. This should form part of that. I acknowledge that extra dental training places have been put in place but it is key that these students are recruited as public dentists and then retained. There is work to be done. The Government needs to prioritise this with the HSE. We are putting money into the dental system. We probably need to increase that funding. I always argue for money to go into front-line services as much as is possible and for bureaucracy and the top layers to be reduced to make sure money is not wasted before it can be used to provide services. It is time for a major shake-up of how dental services are delivered. Other countries can do it. We should do it.”
“It does not cover treatment. The Irish Dental Association estimates that we need at least 500 additional public dentists immediately because, as has been outlined here, we actually have fewer public dentists now than we had five years ago. According to the Irish Dental Association, we need an extra 500 if we are to make a start in providing dental care. The fact is that, as a State, we have failed. Successive governments have failed to put a public dental system in place. Those with special needs have been failed, as have those with medical cards. Workers and families making use of the dental treatment benefit scheme have been failed. Crucially, there has been a failure to provide a proper school dental scheme. All of this shows that we are way behind and have a great deal of work to do.”
“When this fails, as it is clearly failing in Laois, the whole system fails. How it is failing in other parts of the country has been outlined but the Taoiseach has agreed with me that Laois is a black spot. He also gave me a commitment to take this up with the Minister for Health. I would like to see that followed through on. The dental treatment services scheme is 95% non-existent. There is just one dentist from Carlow providing this service in a community centre in Killeshin on the Laois-Carlow border. It is impossible for 95% of medical card patients to get treatment under the DTSS, the scheme that is supposed to cater for them. No dentist will do it. No dentist will take on new patients. The PRSI-based scheme, the dental treatment benefit scheme, only provides workers and families with a cleaning and an examination.”
“I have dealt with a number of cases where people have waited years for hospital access. In one case, not 100 miles from the Minister of State's own house in Laois, a boy has been waiting six years for treatment under general anaesthetic. This child is non-verbal and has serious inflammatory disease. He is in constant pain. This is medical neglect and it is not good enough. After repeated representations, he finally received dental treatment in a hospital recently. He had extractions but the teeth that remain are in very poor condition. The family tell me there is advanced decay and infection. I am informed that he will lose those teeth but the child cannot have dentures. This is very regrettable. The school dental scheme has to be the foundation of a public dental scheme. We have to catch people when they are young.”
“Students should be getting their first examination in third or fourth class in primary school, just as the Minister of State probably got in Graiguecullen and as I got in Laois. Prevention is key. However, they are now not getting that first examination until third, fourth or fifth year in secondary school. That is according to the HSE. There are 6,600 waiting for their first examination and 800 of these are overdue by six years, according to figures I recently got from the HSE. Some 1,500 are overdue by five years. If prevention is key, untold damage is being done. I will raise the position of children and adults with special needs. This is a really serious issue. Those who can only have dental treatment under general anaesthetic are really being neglected.”
“I welcome the fact that these proposals are before the Dáil tonight. Only a few short weeks ago, I brought similar proposals to the floor of the Dáil and to Deputy Micheál Martin and set out a lot of what is in this motion. However, it is good that we are here and that parties are getting behind this. I have raised these issues with successive Ministers for Health: James O'Reilly, Leo Varadkar, Deputy Simon Harris, Stephen Donnelly and the current Minister. We have had four governments in that time. It is a major failure on the part of a relatively wealthy state that we do not have a good public dental system. We have actually gone backwards. In the case of Laois, the figures show that matters have deteriorated.”
“I understand organised crime and drugs cartels are a challenge for everybody, but all of those options should be utilised and we should confine this legislation to the history books. I hope we are not here next year. I welcome the Minister of State as a new Minister and wish her well in her job, but I hope we are not here around this date next year, renewing this outdated, draconian legislation. It has been abused in the past, I am not saying always, but it certainly has been used for political purposes and that has no place in the Ireland of 2026.”
“The Government stated it was committed to initiating "a wide-ranging review of the Offences against the State Acts [1939] with a view to both reform and dispensing with those elements no longer required as circumstances permit." It is a different world now than 1939 or indeed 1970 or 1980. The Minister for justice said last year that: "The main reason I believe the Act should be repealed is that the threats the State faces today...have reduced and significantly altered." I agree. Is it not time to confine this legislation to the history books or the dustbin? While there is a problem with organised crime, there needs to be adequate legislation for that. There are suggestions around that. There is technology and methods for protecting witnesses.”
“Emergency legislation is emergency legislation. I have stated before and I do so again, that the Offences against the State Act was at times used for political purposes. That is a fact. Refusal to answer loaded questions should never be used as a method of implying guilt, nor should the conduct of the accused during interrogation or at other times or by association. They have the potential to be abused, as has the word of a Garda superintendent. The Minister of State’s party trumpets - I was a supporter of it, maybe a reluctant supporter - the Good Friday Agreement, which referred to the Offences against the State Act.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak on this but it is a bit of a charade. It is my 16th year here and year after year, we come in here and it is renewed by Government. The Offences against the State Act was first introduced in 1939. There was an emergency then; there was the Second World War. The fact is that this is renewed annually now, 89 years later. That is a cause of great concern. Numerous legal practitioners and the UN human rights committee, Amnesty International, and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties have all called for repeal or substantial reform of this legislation. The Government commission report by Justice Hederman in 2002, and more recently the Government’s report of 2023, recommended changes, including the non-jury dimension. As I said, this is my 16th year for this. It should never be dealt with in this way.”
“We cannot increase the population of the county by 25%, 26%, or 27% without putting in extra infrastructure, and that is on top of what is already zoned. I appeal to the Tánaiste to go back and look again at this. On the cost of housing, I heard the debate the other night with the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, and Deputy Sheehan from the Labour Party. Back a number of years ago when Fine Gael and the Labour Party were in government, the Kenny report came out. Mr. Justice Kenny was not a member of the revolutionary Marxist party of Ireland or the Maoist Shining Path revolution.”
“I have to say to the Tánaiste that the Minister, Deputy Calleary, the Minister, Deputy Browne, the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, and the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, have all been in the constituency. It is kind of like an election year, but it is good to see them all down there. The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, was the only one who did not tell me he was coming. Yes, funding has been allocated and that is fair enough, but the roundabout the Tánaiste is talking about that one of those is earmarked for is nearly built. I passed it very early this morning on my way here. There are big projects. The Portlaoise northern orbital route, PNOR, and the N80 in Mountmellick are key. The Uisce Éireann scheme for small towns and villages needs to be delivered on. We need to see that happen.”
“Any of the Ministers who have been down - including the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, who did not invite me when he was coming but came and sneaked in even though he was only about a quarter of a mile from me - will have seen what is being delivered in Laois. The chief executive officer of the council and the councillors are saying they have done their bit, will do more when they get the money and will come up with whatever money they can as well, but the funds have to be provided for those projects. Will the Tánaiste get the chequebook out and make sure that we get those pieces of infrastructure, including roads, wastewater facilities, schools, a primary care centre and sports facilities, that are needed in the county?”
“Three of the very large land banks zoned this week are on the path of the Portlaoise northern orbital route which is there since my time on the council and before that. That needs to be constructed. There is a critical shortage of wastewater infrastructure in some of the towns and villages that have been earmarked: Borris-in-Ossory with 160 homes; Ballybrittas with 114 homes; Ballinakill with 58 homes; and Graiguecullen with 437. All of them need wastewater infrastructure upgrades or network connections. A primary care centre is needed in Portlaoise. That needs to be built. Laois County Council has provided whatever infrastructure and facilities it can with the limited resources it has.”
“I have no problem with it but the facts are we do not have the infrastructure in the county. The funding allocation this year under the national development plan announced earlier for roads was zero. Cash is required. We need a new primary school in Portlaoise, Coláiste Dhún Másc secondary school needs to be fast-tracked, Coláiste Íosagáin, Portarlington, needs to be built and Saplings Special School in Graiguecullen is dependent on the goodwill of strangers apparently. The N80 bypass in Mountmellick is long promised; the Tánaiste saw it himself when he was there a year and a half ago. It is urgently needed from Fairgreen to Kilminchy roundabout. The N80 goes through a highly populated area and HGVs hit the rail bridge and are chugging along through the market square. The whole place is choked up.”
“Over the past week or so the Tánaiste has been very critical of county councils which he said think they have "done enough" on housing. He said, “There’s too much sluggishness in parts of the system, in terms of zoning land." Laois cannot be counted as one of them if one looks at what it has done on zoning this week. It has exceeded the Department of housing's targets. We need more affordable and social housing and cost rental but it has gone well past the targets. On zoning, this week Laois zoned lands on top of what is already zoned for an additional 8,200 homes. That is a population increase of between 25,000 and 30,000 in a county with about 95,000 of a population at the moment. It is in the top three highest population increases in the State. This was demanded by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Government.”
“The measures the Minister of State brought in will not provide more housing. They are providing more hardship. That is what they are doing and that is not good enough.”