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

Almost every day here we talk about housing targets. Today, in one leading newspaper, an article states that this Government will be 13,000 homes behind the 2027 targets it set last November. This is one crisis that must be resolved immediately. Another crisis, though, is rural, one-off planning. It is almost grinding to a halt. I have up to ten people coming to me weekly in west Cork. In some cases, they have spent thousands of euro in this regard. I refer to young people trying to get a start out in life, but every obstacle is put in front of them to block them from getting planning permission. It is not that long ago that I mentioned in the Dáil a young lady who had spent €10,000 to get planning permission relating to a family farm on a west Cork island only to be turned down. I am not pointing the finger at planners, but I am pointing the finger at those who wrote the negative rural planning guidelines that are almost impossible to get through. Only a couple of weeks ago, the Government put forward proposals for timber cabins, which I welcomed. Will the Government now bring forward legislation to change rural planning guidelines immediately to allow people from their own area to get planning permission in a fair and reasonable way?

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