Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Will he do me a favour and ask the officials in the Department to send me an English translation of this bureau-speak? I have an idea of what it really means. It actually means that because of the Flemish ruling, there will be no rural houses for these areas. That is what they are trying to tell us but they are afraid to put it upfront on the table and to tell us what they have planned for us because we might rebel and say "Sorry, we have fantastic quality of life". I ask not to be given the carbon argument, because in ten or 15 years, we will all have electric cars. I ask not to be given the wastewater argument, because we look after our wastewater better than the municipal authorities, from whose activities the vast number of serious wastewater issues arise. They are not caused by people who have their own wastewater systems and must adhere to the highest standards. Moreover, it is not true that one needs to show a functional economic requirement.

Another absolutely amazing aspect of the document is its discussion of something an tAthair Micheál Mac Gréil has spoken about many times - the gentrification of the countryside. Poor people are being moved out because of a refusal to build local authority housing while middle-class or wealthy people can afford to live in the countryside. Up to seven years ago, when the last Government came in, we had such a thing as a rural cottage or county council house. One gave the site for €100.

It was cheap housing for the State. People got local authority housing. Some genius decided to put an end to that and to force families to move away from where they grew up and where they had supports. No rural county council houses are being built any more because there is an absolute fetish that for some reason, which nobody has yet explained-----

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