Localauthoritiesarebiggest pollutersclaimsHealyRae
THE local authorities throughout the country are the biggest polluters in any county, quite simply, because of lack of investment, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae told the Dáil. It is not the local authorities’ fault, he said but rather the fault of not only this Government but Governments dating back over the years which failed to ensure the proper resources were put in place.
“The funny aspect of it is that if one goes back over the history, schemes could have been put in place for sums that were not large but now, with modern systems, of course, it involves bigger money,” he said.
Speaking during a debate on water services, he said the local authority, Kerry County Council, has prioritised on numerous occasions and costed the funding required to put in sewerage schemes and all the preparatory work in the places such as Caherdaniel, Castlecove and Kilcummin, where there is need for upgrades or where there is no scheme whatsoever.
“Kerry is at the bottom of the country but, by God, we certainly do not want to be left behind when it comes to investment,” he said. “We are every bit as entitled to investment in Ballinskelligs as they are in Blackrock. I will continue to say that in such a way that eventually the message will get home and ministers and taoisigh who are centred on Dublin and who might not think that there is anything beyond the Red Cow realise that there is, and that we are crying out for investment.”
Deputy Healy-Rae said he was glad to recently attend at Lough Guitane, where there is a the new water treatment plant which serves big towns up to 50 miles away in Kerry. “It is servicing Tralee, Killarney and a massive hinterland. It was great to see that massive investment in Kerry being opened yesterday. It is future-proofed. It will be there for the generations to come.” CLARIFICATION on the reasons for the delay in the payment of illness benefit in recent months was sought in the Dáil by Fianna Fáil Deputy John Brassil.
“Deputy Regina Doherty, gave a commitment that the 20,000 people still owed some of their illness benefit payment, if not all of it, would be paid,” he said. “There are still thousands of people without payment. The knock-on effects include people having to borrow money and having to go to the community welfare officer to try to get an emergency payment. It is, as the Minister knows, also causing undue and unfair hardship. People have made their contribution towards this payment. This goes back to an information technology issue and at this stage that is not acceptable anymore. An information technology issue can surely be resolved in nine months.”
In response, the Minister for Employment & Social Affairs, Regina Doherty said a transition to a new information technology system in August led to a number of people on illness benefit receiving partial or no payments during recent months. “Following remedial action taken by the Department in recent days, however, payment levels have now returned to normal,” she said. “Action taken on two occasions led to 54,000 payments being issued. The normal activity is 50,000 payments. Unless Deputy Brassil has information to the contrary, every single person due an outstanding payment received his or her payment this week. Some people are still awaiting arrears from previous weeks, but every single person entitled to illness benefit in the last week has received a payment.
“I am not happy with our communications over the couple of weeks,” she added. “Most people in our Department and in this House will accept that our Department is especially customer-focused and is particularly engaged in communications.” ONE of the most embarrassing and degrading things Senator Ned O’Sullivan told the Upper House he had seen was the abuse of disabled voters down through the years in the polls, in nursing homes and in hospitals.
“No party is guiltless,” he said. “It is important that the dignity of a person must be first and foremost and every accommodation must be given that the voter can have the confidence that he or she is voting in private. Just because one is impaired should not invalidate one’s right to a secret ballot. The secret ballot is the foundation of democracy. I have seen people being asked to vote in situations where one would be sorry for them. There was no secrecy about it. At one stage, many politicians felt if they got up early enough in the morning and collected enough disabled people, then they had votes in the bag as they could control the vote. Thankfully those days are gone.”
Senator O’Sullivan said the largest single change he had seen was the right for people in hospitals and nursing homes to cast their votes in situ rather than having ill people being physically dragged into polling stations. “It was not right. Now they can vote in the privacy of the hospital accompanied by an appropriate person or garda to ensure no outside involvement.”