Mr. Tim Lucey:

I will bring in Mr. Michael Lynch, our director of planning, on one or two of the specific questions such as the SAC and I will then bring in Mr. Maurice Manning on the social housing because he is our director of housing.

To go back to and add to what Ms Murrell was saying on rural housing and the opportunities for those who are native Irish speakers or Irish speaking, this comes back to the nature of our rural housing policy and our objective is to try, in the first instance, to ensure those who are local to an area receive planning permission. These are people with an intrinsic connection with the language, a social and economic connection with the local area, whether it is a townland or a parish, or with the catchment area of the local school that one attended. This applies in particular to the sons and daughters of farmers in the first instance and to those who are living for more than seven years in the area, returning emigrants or people who have a real and direct link to the social and economic life of rural areas.

That is what strengthens the opportunity for anybody who is from those areas and is a native Irish speaker or is from the area and may not be a fluent speaker but who has an interest in Irish language, culture and heritage. All of our development policies in terms of rural housing support those who are local and can sustain the Gaeltacht areas in that way. There is no question of our policies in that regard lacking in that way. When one looks at the planning permissions granted that were mentioned, 148 of which were new dwellings and 165 of which included demolitions, rebuilds and some change of uses into houses, and one links that to three refusals over the period we have shown the committee, it clearly shows there is a very supportive planning policy in place. Those refusals were on specific issues. One could have been potentially in relation to wastewater treatment, which I will come to.

There are significant challenges, not just in Ballingeary but outside of the Gaeltacht area and through a range of villages that are deficient, to some or a very significant degree, in water and wastewater infrastructure. It is not all of them but quite a few of them. That is certainly a challenge to sustaining rural communities, not just Gaeltacht communities. It is a challenge to Ballingeary, in particular.

It does not come directly within the remit of local government. We clearly run the water services, in conjunction with Irish Water, but the capital investment programme that drives the improvement of water and wastewater facilities in those types of areas is driven by the availability of the funding at a national level to Irish Water and how it carves that up to meet its criteria for where investment should go for water services.

That is the particular issue there. If one looks at our development plan, we have gone through every individual settlement, including those in the Gaeltacht, and we can show clearly where there is capacity or some capacity or where capacity is to be delivered in the next six years, within the lifetime of our next development plan. I suggest that Ballingeary is one that is challenged in that way.

Where there is a community fund or a contribution from a wind farm developer who has received planning permission and is developing out, generally they are administered through the establishment of a local community group. This group works and determines, in conjunction with the wind farm operator or developer, its priorities for the area. We do not have a role in that. I do not know the particulars and we should not discuss them here, but certainly, if there are particular ones Deputy Moynihan wishes to take up with us after the meeting to get a deeper understanding, we are happy to do so. However, the community funds are there for the purpose of ensuring it is the community who influences how that spend is allocated and on what programmes, etc. There should be opportunity there, subject to the appropriate consultation by the developers with the community and in the right framework.