Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

For the first time, they provide a policy framework setting out in detail how Government policy on rural housing, as set out in the national spatial strategy, is to be taken forward by local authorities in planning more effectively for rural areas. The guidelines will deliver a new era of fairness and transparency in planning for rural dwellers. What do we get from the Green Party, however? That party, which does not have a single Member based in a rural area, wants to sit in its metropolitan ivory towers and pronounce to the people of rural Ireland about how they should live their lives.

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