Mr. Paul Hogan:

Chapter 5 certainly enables rural development, including rural housing. It sets up the possibility of having guidelines, or it will be a national planning statement for rural areas or rural housing, or for both as the case may be. There is nothing in the national planning framework which precludes rural housing. Certainly, over the course of the six year lifetime of the NPF to date, approximately 5,000 rural houses have been completed every year. It has been a fairly consistent element of housing supply in Ireland and has been spread across rural areas across throughout the country. Every local authority has a rural housing policy in its development plan. Admittedly, there may be some inconsistencies and differences of approach. If we were to publish rural housing guidelines, we would seek to encourage a degree of fairness and consistency across the board which would be an objective. This will be a matter for an incoming government at this stage.