Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have a very serious housing problem and there is no point in me mincing my words here. It is a scandalous situation in which we find ourselves. Year after year, since I came into the Dáil, we have spent a huge amount of time talking about housing. I often say that if we had a house or two built every time we spoke about housing in here, we would not have a crisis but, unfortunately, we do. At weekend clinics in my constituency, I have five or six people coming to me with issues related to planning permission. I am talking about ordinary, one-off planning applications from young people trying to start off in life. They do not want social housing. They have tried to get a loan and are trying to get going on their family's farm but they cannot get permission. If the planners in Cork county and all over the country, where this seems to be an issue, cannot get it right, it is no wonder we cannot get the housing crisis sorted. The Government has no issue with building modular homes or other types of homes. There is no need for planning or to worry about water or sewerage - just shove them in wherever they are going to be - but when it comes to the ordinary, one-off house in rural Ireland, the Government will do its best to stop that. Whatever is in the mindset is shocking.

People want permission to build temporary timber-frame structures and the Government should be supporting that. These are family homes that will enable people who cannot afford a mortgage and who do not want to go on the housing list to get a start. They just want to do something and they can buy a timber structure for €10,000 or €15,000. The Government should support that. As rural Independents, we are trying to come up with ideas for homes, including mobile homes, just to get people a roof over their heads. It is far better than leaving them out on the street and adding to the numbers that are there already.

Doing up houses in rural towns and villages is obviously a good idea and while there are grants available now, the Government has left it far too late. I put forward that suggestion on behalf of community and voluntary organisations, including one in west Cork with which I was involved, years ago. The Government should have been grant-aiding that a long time ago to bring people back into rural communities, super communities like those in Schull, Goleen, Ballydehob, Durrus, Kilcrohane and Castletownbere, but it failed in that as well.

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