Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Rural Independent Group for bringing forward this motion. It is important we discuss it.

First, many towns and villages around the country have housing estates that were built back in the boom times, with private wastewater treatment plants. Irish Water, local authorities and the Government have walked away from them. They are refusing to recognise them. They are leaving it to the people who own those houses to maintain those treatment plants. Furthermore, the local authorities will not allow any further houses to be connected to those wastewater treatment plants, yet there is capacity within the plants. There are also previous planning permissions which have lapsed, and the county council is refusing to allow these houses to be granted planning permission. It is an absolute farce.

The second part of my gripe is that many towns and villages do not have wastewater treatment plants. The Government will say to me it has put in a budget of €45 million for the local authorities to come forward. That sum is a drop in the ocean, and I respectfully say to the Minister of State that it needs to be ten times that if we are to do something. Furthermore, the shame of it all is that this was announced two years ago and local authorities still have not got the go-ahead to build out what they have proposed to the Department. It is criminal. We are talking about a housing crisis and we have people living in the dark ages as regards decision-making. I ask the Department to get off its feet, get up off its arse and get the job done. It is important we do that.

As regards rural planning, the roads authority is now the planning authority. It will restrict every road it can in order that houses cannot be built on them. The cheek of it. Let it build its roads and make sure they are built properly. Let the planners decide on safety issues. It is absolutely disgraceful that people who want to build houses on their own farms are being refused for the simple reason there is a continuous white line on the road or some other stupid issue at play. What is going on is criminal, and rural Ireland is suffering for it.

The Government talks about rural houses and clusters. Galway County Council has a scheme for clusters. It does not have guidelines, so individual planners can decide what a cluster should look like. I have had three refusals for the first three clusters that were submitted in Galway for five houses in small villages. What an impact that would make to the communities. They were all refused. This is the kind of - I will not use the word I was about to use, but it is the type of stuff we have to listen to every day of the week.

We have to take hold of the housing crisis and make sure we can build houses where they are needed and where people want to live. We have heard talk about rural housing guidelines for, I would say, the past three years and we have not seen them. In the absence of that, planners are making decisions that these guidelines will be this, that and the other. It is a crying indictment of the Department and this Government that we do not know and local authorities do not have the direction as to how to build houses.

I come from a rural constituency. I could name for the rest of the day villages where people could build houses. An Bord Pleanála has issued decisions to say any development there would be premature. For instance, in my parish, the village of Corrofin, since 2007, has been put off the wastewater housing list.

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