Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I raise with the Minister the issue of planning permission and planning guidelines for log cabins, modular homes and mobile homes. We are all well aware of the housing crisis, which the Minister has been addressing, and we are all talking about it. There is a concerning situation in the case of people who have modular homes or a mobile home. I have previously asked for a ten-year moratorium during this crisis. There is strong enforcement by local authorities of planning policy against log cabins and temporary dwellings. I am aware of at least a dozen cases in south Tipperary where people are being turfed out, brought to court and prosecuted for putting up mobile homes or extended log cabins on their own site. I am not talking about reckless planning. These homes are carefully constructed. These modular buildings are now very safe and comfortable. Will the Minister amend the guidelines? It is his bailiwick. The Government could easily issue guidelines on rural planning. We are waiting for them as they have not been changed in 20 years. We are now told that the Green Party is insisting that will not happen. While the outdated guidelines for rural planning remain the same, a house will not be built in rural Ireland for a farmer's son or daughter or for anybody else either. That is a shocking scenario that the tail is wagging the dog to that extent. I call on the Minister to publish the new statutory rural planning guidelines and to include log cabins within them. That could be done with the simple stroke of a pen. I also call on him to sign an emergency ministerial order, a statutory instrument, to relax the planning laws for log cabins and to accept them as a viable solution to the housing crisis.

I am aware of a gentleman, Sean Meehan, who is 66 years of age. He has given me permission to use his name here. Following a marriage separation, he bought 5 acres of land and built a log cabin on it. Tipperary County Council has brought him to court four times. He was told by the judge ten days before Christmas to have his bag packed the next time as he has been sentenced to four months in prison if he does not remove the log cabin. He has nowhere to go. Tipperary County Council does not have anything to give him and it has not approved his application for housing. He is in a desperate situation. Let us just imagine that. He is an Irish citizen. All his people are buried within a mile of him up the road. He was born and reared in the townland of Loughkent and Woodenstown. He has a comfortable house there on his own site, with his dog and cats. Now, he is facing prison or sleeping under the Main Guard in Clonmel when he comes out of prison. That is a bonkers situation.

I am not asking for planning laws to be recklessly abandoned but the Minister could at least introduce a moratorium. He will not publish the long-promised planning guidelines, which was a commitment in the Government manifesto. The Green Party will not allow it to do so. This man and many more like him – there are 12 others – are being prosecuted by the council. The council has enough to do to find homes for people. We should support people where they have the will and the way in the sense of having a few pounds together to do this. I have been in many log cabins. They are lovely comfortable homes. They are connected to their own sewerage and water systems. They are not interfering aesthetically with the scenery or anything else, yet they are being prosecuted. Can we believe it in this day and age? They are being prosecuted. As Deputy McNamara said, the Government cannot prosecute people arriving here illegally. This is a shameful treatment of Irish citizens, in this case, Sean Meehan. The Minister sits idly by although he could change the guidelines at the stroke of a pen and introduce a statutory instrument so as to ensure that people who try to house themselves are not made into criminals.

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