The Mayor of Kerry has called for development levies in the west to be abandoned and for the Government to substantially grant-aid house building instead.
The call came yesterday from Mr Breandán Mac Gearailt as 300 farmers and rural dwellers prepared to protest outside tonight's meeting of Kerry County Council over the levies.
Levies of €9,500 a home are being considered in some Kerry villages where substantial water and sewage infrastructure is needed.
Mr Mac Gearailt said no extra charges should be levied on people building their primary home.
The west, he added, does not have the same infrastructure as the east of the country, and Kerry business people already pay the highest rates in the country.
At tonight's meeting the mayor will propose that grant aid of up to €25,000 should be made to people building their primary home. This should be made available on a sliding scale with couples earning €50,000 getting the full amount, and those earning €90,000 getting least.
He said many young people are being sentenced to 30 years of hard labour in hefty mortgage repayments if they consider building their own homes.
Even middle earners are being driven out of the market in Kerry and the State has to pick up the burden by providing local authority/affordable or social housing, he added.
Local authorities have until March 10th to have in place a scheme of development levies under the Planning and Development Act 2000.
In some areas in Kerry, more than double the existing charges are proposed.
Kerry's Irish Farmers' Association chairman, Mr Flor McCarthy, said farmers and rural communities were being targeted to pay for benchmarking increases to civil servants.
All farm building will be levied, he said.
"The proposed new charges will add significantly to the costs of farm building work taking place now, and over the next few years. Most of this work is to upgrade existing farmyard facilities to comply with environmental cross compliance and by-laws being imposed by the local authority themselves."
Officials in Kerry have defended the scheme. The increases are for capital projects, not for benchmarking, county manager Mr Martin Nolan said.