Danny Healy-Rae: Condemns CPOs on South Kerry Greenway

First of all, Chairman, I'd like to get the opportunity to talk. I'm not on the committee. I want to welcome all the people here and thank all the members for their engagement. First of all, I was brought up to respect property. If people own the farm or people own the house, it is theirs and it is theirs to do what they, and it should be theirs to do what they want to do with it. And in that same vein, when the vote was put before me in Kerry County Council back in 2014, I voted against the CPO process because I had learned from my father what it actually meant. And at all times in his previous political life, he always tried to deal with, and he went out behind the councils back to deal with landowners to ensure that the CPO process, one never needed, and dealt with farmers himself and brought out the manager. That's the way it was done that time. And that's the way I would have liked that this would have happened. And we had, at one stage, there was only six or seven landowners that were against it along the council. And we had a couple of great men down there engaging with the landowners. But that would rain back because of the idea of the CPO process and that the local authority and the TIO would have more authority over, and a way less work in that they didn't have to interact with the people, the landowners. And it's sad today when you see what has happened, that people's land has been intruded on, the road has been made, whatever you call it, the walkway. Landowners don't know what they're going to get. They didn't know until this started that there was no line, or they weren't exactly suited, the work to go, and the workers. And if the landowner couldn't ask anyone where exactly, from where to where, it wasn't that that was the way to be, only it could be above or below that. And to me, that wasn't the way that it should have been. And people dealt with it. Because I worry about the long term. And look, I, as much as anyone else that's elected up here, want the best for Cairns, and South Kerry, and for Glynbe, and all the roads, and all the different places. I want the best for all those people. And I know the pressure that businesses are under, day after day, and all the hoops they have to go through. But I worry that there'll be a sour taste in many landowners' mouths or minds after this, because of the way this has happened. It could have been so different. And I think of a poor man that had one field for soilage, a couple of acres. And he asked him to go on the top, or go on the bottom of the field, but that went straight through the middle bit. That man is dead today. And I'm sorry that he had to die thinking, knowing what was going to happen with a little bit of a field. That's the things that are wrong. And accommodation works. You, everyone of us know inside here, if we had the field to do what we wanted, to graze the cattle, or to graze the sheep, or to cut the soilage, that the line going through it is going to make a massive difference altogether to the owners' lives. And I welcome everyone that can come to South Kerry, whatever way they come. But you must think of the people that own the places in the first place. And to think that many of them are seeing people walking through now, they haven't been paid, and I worry for the mental health of some of those people that are going through. The CPO should have been the last resort. And when myself and Johnny voted against it, and we thought, you know what we thought, that it was the six or seven that were going to CPO. And the next thing we realised, the whole lot of them are CPO'd. And there was no need of that in the first place. Deal with the six or seven, and maybe they come around. And without question, I hope that the people along the way, and the tourists that visit there will get, you know, that they will appreciate it. But this is not the way to ever do this again, Chairman. And there's land not gone into it in the South Kerry Greenway. And I'm asking all here to do it different with these. Go in and ask them, and tell them where they're going and sign up a contract. Not to sign the contract when the land is gone, but to sign up a contract first. This is what we're taking, and this is what we want. We'll pay you so much for it. Not the way it is going on now, that people don't know what they're getting. That man here beside me, they didn't pay yet, and they're going through him. That's not the way to do business, Chairman.