Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Town centres are very important but there are also huge numbers of properties scattered all over the countryside. Such a scheme could very well apply to those properties. I will also add another suggestion. Right now, under planning laws, a person can extend at the rear of a building without planning. I believe the dimensions are approximately 400 square feet. It might make sense to double that exemption in rural areas, and perhaps within a 50 km zone, and increase the dimensions by 50% to 800 square feet in a rural area and 600 square feet in an urban area. Many of those properties were quite small compared to modern standards. Again, there would be less red tape for someone who is seeking to convert the property and, in some cases, build on such basic things as a kitchen or bathroom. A person should be able to do so without having to go through the whole planning process. Speed up the process, bring more of these properties into circulation and get people into homes. As I said, there are thousands of them out there. It is a crying shame in a housing crisis that we have so many vacant units all over the country. We need to be imaginative in how we solve this.

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