Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I understand the Deputy's concerns. The Department is consulting the European Commission on proposed revisions to the statutory housing guidelines. The working group completed its work last September and we have been in negotiations with the European Commission since. I hope that in the months ahead we will be able to bring clarity to this issue. Through the national planning framework, we hope to outline the direction we will take. Through the discussion at the various committees here and with councillors all over the country, we will agree to change the wording to allow for economic and social ties in the case of one-off housing.

From my review of the planning guidelines for rural houses and the application of the guidelines in my county, I believe once the site criteria pertaining to transport, vehicular access and drainage are satisfied and there are local ties, to the school or football club, as the Deputy said, generally planning permission is granted. I accept that when somebody is moving from an urban area such as a town or village to a rural area, it is complicated. All of us want to make sure, however, that people from a rural area can live beside their family and from what I can see, that generally does happen. We are trying to respect that trend and continue it.

The national planning framework will set out the direction we will take. We will receive clarity from the European Commission in the months ahead and be able to provide an updated position for the Deputy. I will keep him abreast of developments as time progresses. I acknowledge that his concern is genuine. We do try to recognise people's social ties to an area, in addition to their economic ties. It is not the case that there is a block on housing. I have seen a figure of 6,000 one-off rural houses per year. This was quite a high number during recessionary times, when nobody was involved in construction. It is probably wrong to say no one-off houses are being sanctioned, but I understand the case the Deputy is trying to raise and hope we can deal with it.

Through the national planning framework, we are trying to target villages that have experienced decline in recent years and make it possible and affordable for people to build in them. In the past, even buying a site in a village area cost a lot of money and it was not practical to build a house there. We want to make it practical and try to strengthen the system to give people a chance to live in a rural village or other rural area.

See this speech in context