Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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46. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government when new rural housing guidelines will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1314/19]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State will be aware that, following the Flemish decree of the European Court of Justice in 2013, a working group comprising senior representatives from his Department and planning authorities was established in May 2017 to review the new rural housing guidelines. At what stage is this process, and when does he expect the guidelines to be published? When they are published, will he open them for public consultation?

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Under the current 2005 guidelines on sustainable rural housing, planning authorities are required to frame the planning policies in their development plans in a balanced and measured way that ensures the housing needs of rural communities are met while avoiding excessive urban-generated housing and haphazard development, particularly in those areas near cities and towns that are under extreme pressure from urban-generated development.

Following engagement between the European Commission and my Department on the European Court of Justice ruling in the "Flemish decree" case, a working group was established to review and, where necessary, recommend changes to the 2005 planning guidelines on sustainable rural housing, issued under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. The working group comprises senior officials from the planning division of my Department and senior officials from the planning divisions of local authorities nominated by the local government sector.

The objective is to ensure that rural housing policies and objectives contained in local authority development plans comply with the relevant provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The national planning framework, NPF, also provides an important context for the finalisation of the revisions to the 2005 rural housing guidelines. National policy objective 15 of the NPF fully supports the concept of the sustainable development of rural areas by encouraging growth and arresting decline in areas that have experienced low population growth or decline in recent decades, while simultaneously indicating the need to manage certain areas around cities and towns that are under strong urban influence and under pressure from unco-ordinated and ribbon-type development, in order to avoid overdevelopment of those areas. Accordingly, the NPF objectives are aligned with the approach already expected of planning authorities under the planning guidelines.

Taking account of the engagement with the European Commission on the matter and subject to the completion of the ongoing deliberations by the working group, I expect to be in a position shortly to finalise and issue to planning authorities revisions to the 2005 rural housing guidelines that take account of the relevant European Court of Justice judgment.

We do not envisage the need for a public consultation, at least at this moment in time, but we can certainly see what the working group concludes and have a discussion here or in committee. I do not think we will need that, though. We should be okay. We can have the conversation here or in committee-----

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Sure.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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-----and if we feel we have to, we can do that, but I hope we will not have to go down that road.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State's response. It has taken quite some time to get to this stage. When he says "shortly", are we looking at the next month or two? We all have different definitions of "shortly", but this has gone on for quite some time. My understanding is that the working group concluded its deliberations in September 2017, so I do not think we can make a call as to whether there would be a requirement for public consultation until we can actually see the revisions. I agree with him that the best place for them to go to first would be the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government to assess them. I cannot understand why it has taken so long. I know quite a degree of work has gone into it and that we have had to liaise with the Commission and others on this, but could the Minister of State be more specific as to when the Government intends to publish them? Will he give a commitment that they will be brought to the committee in advance of making any decision as to whether or not public consultation will be required?

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The best indication I can give is that the next meeting of the working group, which will hopefully be the final meeting, is this month, a few weeks away. We should be in a position to finalise the work after that. It has taken a long time because we have engaged with the Commission on this and that can be lengthy. The working group met four times, most recently in November 2018. The first meeting was in May 2017. We will see what comes out of the final meeting this month. Then we can take it forward and I will be happy to engage with the committee on that as well because it is important to bring clarity to this. We will have to issue guidelines to local authorities to implement which should help the new development plans in the roll-out after the regional plans are put in place.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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If the working group meets toward the end of January, will the Minister of State convey to it our earnest desire to have this concluded as swiftly as possible and that it would come to committee in the first quarter of this year? We all want balanced and appropriate rural development that sustains the rural community. That has to be underpinned by a rural housing policy. Should that need to be revised, which it will, the sooner it is done the better. It should also conform with national planning policy.

There is a lot of interest in this. There has been a lot of discussion about what the Flemish decree will mean for rural housing policy in all our county development plans. I ask the Minister of State to bring that message to the working group at its final meeting this month.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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That message will certainly go back. We have the same message as well. We would like this finished to bring clarity to this issue. We have tried to pre-empt what might happen with our work on the national planning framework. The Deputy will see the slight change we have made in rural planning which is along the same lines. We are all very clear on this. There is often a conversation here about rural Ireland but if the Deputy looks back over recent years, quite a few one-off houses, numbering in the thousands, are developed and permitted in rural Ireland. In some areas, such as Galway, the majority are one-off houses. As a planning authority and Department, we are open to one-off housing in the appropriate setting and place. We would all agree it cannot be excessive in an unco-ordinated way in pressure zones. The Flemish decree is an interpretation of that. We have dealt with that pretty well and we will see what the working group brings forward. We will move swiftly after that to issue guidance to local authorities to enable councillors make their decisions on development plans.