Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

The rural housing crisis is the biggest single issue impacting rural communities and the long-term sustainability of rural Ireland. Previously, I asked the Minister about his engagement with the Minister for housing on this issue. To be fair, it was a number of months ago, and at that point the Minister had not been in the job all that long. Meetings had not taken place, although he indicated that engagement would follow. We also discussed the need for housing to be the cornerstone of the new rural development policy, the successor to the Our Rural Future scheme, which had very little to say about housing. Will the Minister update the House on that engagement, confirm whether a cross-departmental working group on rural housing has been established and outline what formal engagements he has had with the Minister for housing in a formal sense about the issue of rural housing?

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