Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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I move:

That Dáil Éireann: acknowledges that:

- despite years of promises and lip service, the Government has consistently failed to effectively tackle the housing crisis, leaving them scrambling to react to a situation that has now spun out of control;

- according to Eurostat, Ireland's housing crisis is currently the worst in Europe, with rent prices increasing more than any other European Union country;

- the Construction Industry Federation reports that 70,000 homes are currently held up in the planning system due to appeals to An Bord Pleanála or the courts;

- the lack of coherent Government action, along with strict planning processes and rising construction material costs, is significantly straining the affordability and delivery of new housing projects;

- the planning system in Ireland is dysfunctional, outdated, and not fit for purpose, and is now one of the biggest obstacles to house building and is a major cost driver of expensive housing;

- the Government's failure and inaction to address the overly bureaucratic planning system have rendered the entire planning system unworkable, and it is within their jurisdiction to rectify it;

- the Government bears significant responsibility for the dysfunctional planning system, which is underpinned by anti-rural regulations, including a cap on the number of one-off houses per county, as per the National Planning Framework (NPF);

- in the absence of updated regional planning guidelines, the NPF is dictating the guidelines that feed into regional strategies - which local councils must consider when setting development plans - and negatively impacting on planning permission for one-off housing;

- rural housing regulations that restrict the granting of planning permission on rural lands adjacent to national roads, even with an existing entrance, are overly zealous and exacerbating the housing crisis; and

- the Office of the Planning Regulator has been allowed by Government to take an especially aggressive and unhelpful anti-rural stance on one-off housing, consistent with the Government's objective to have a more compact and sustainable pattern of overall development, further depopulating rural communities;

notes that:

- Irish planning laws are outdated and almost impossible to navigate when it comes to obtaining planning permission for log cabins, with individuals who have invested their own money or taken out loans to build a home for themselves facing insurmountable obstacles;

- log cabins offer a range of benefits for housing, including durability, energy efficiency, and a rustic aesthetic;

- log cabins can be constructed quickly and efficiently, making them a cost-effective option for both builders and homeowners;

- to fully take advantage of the benefits offered by log cabins, planning restrictions must be eased to make log cabin construction more accessible and affordable for those interested in this type of housing;

- the last rural housing guidelines were issued in 2005 (18 years ago), and while this Government and the last Government promised to publish new guidelines we still do not have a policy in place;

- the lack of a rural housing policy document means that local authorities have no universal roadmap for rural housing policy within their operational planning remits;

- while the Government has proceeded to publish draft sustainable and compact settlement planning guidelines aimed at forcing more urban living, it has failed, despite promises, to publish a similar policy for rural communities;

- the Government is inactive in terms of rural housing policy, which has resulted in young people being forced off the land of their forebears due to unreasonable policy decisions, restrictions in granting planning permission for rural homes, and preventing farmers' sons and daughters from living on the land and in their communities of origin;

- the current planning process, from local development plans to specific project assessment, An Bord Pleanála appeals, and judicial reviews, can take up to four years for a project or applicant to be determined;

- the Government's overwhelming reliance on the private sector to deliver housing is not supported by a functioning planning system, despite the problem being consistently highlighted for well over a decade;

- An Bord Pleanála has become a dysfunctional organisation that is neither efficient nor effective, and the time has come for it to be overhauled, scrapped, or replaced; and

- An Bord Pleanála, which ultimately determines appeals and applications for strategic infrastructure and housing developments, currently has only 70 inspectors and eight board members to regulate the entire planning system here, compared to the Central Bank of Ireland, which has 1,100 staff to regulate the financial system; and

calls on the Government to:

- instruct the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to publish the long-promised new rural housing guidelines to bring clarity and certainty to rural communities, young families, and couples exploring the option of restoring old farm homesteads or building a rural one-off home;

- ensure that the new rural planning guidelines allow for planning permission to be permitted for rural housing in all rural areas for those who have a genuine housing need or connection to the local area, in order to allow young people to continue to work on the land, develop rural Ireland, and keep our townlands, towns, and villages strong and vibrant;

- relax outdated planning laws to allow sustainable log cabin units to be constructed without unnecessary planning permission requirements by amending the planning regulations that would facilitate the construction of temporary or permanent structures for residential purposes on family-owned lands in rural areas;

- extend the Help to Buy scheme to incorporate first-time buyers who wish to buy a second-hand house or apartment;

- introduce a new €20,000 grant-aid package for anyone who wishes to build a permanent one-off house on their own lands;

- amend the Croí Cónaithe (Towns) Fund Scheme, to include properties that are vacant for more than 30 days, to boost the availability of higher quality rental accommodation;

- introduce statutory timelines of no greater than eight weeks for An Bord Pleanála to deal with all applications to dramatically reduce backlogs; and

- instruct the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to relax regulations to rural housing so that planning permission may be granted for permanent homes on rural lands adjacent to national roads.

Last week, I met a woman by the name of Mary Doorty, née Sheehan, who is originally from Bruree and who now lives in Clare. I met her in Croom hospital where she was recovering from a short illness. She grew up across the road from Éamon de Valera, who spent many a time in her parents' parlour talking with her father. She turned 96 years of age on 27 April. She said to me, "What have Fianna Fáil done to our party? What have Fianna Fáil done to rural Ireland? Have they forgotten where it first started?" I looked at the Minister's reply to our motion that he circulated to us. Again there is no proactive proposal for housing in rural areas. There are no new comments, only a rehash of what he has told us before. It is like the Government considers rural housing as a threat to the green economy. It is obvious that the Green Party is against anything rural. There is no new housing policy. How long do we have to wait? I heard the Minister on Newstalk this morning talking about An Bord Pleanála and the extra people who have been taken on. I understand that and the issues that we had. However, this is about planning for rural Ireland. Last week, young members of Macra na Feirme walked the 79 km to the Dáil from Athy to highlight the issue of planning in rural areas. We have had a 96-year-old woman, Mary Doorty, ask if the Government has forgotten rural Ireland.

The Minister spoke again this morning about the Land Development Agency, LDA. The LDA only works within 15 minutes of the cities, which wipes out over two thirds of County Limerick. The Minister visited County Limerick and saw how there is no infrastructure left only for three towns in the county where we have capacity to build houses. The Minister has forgotten about the likes of Kilbeheny, Oola, Hospital, Banogue, Askeaton, Broadford and Glin. I could keep going all day listing the places the Government has forgotten to invest in. Some of these areas have not seen investment in infrastructure for sewerage or water for up to 40 years, even though Fianna Fáil has been promising it, as have its councillors who are retiring. Currently, developers are being paid per square metre to build apartments and houses. They get €144,000 per apartment. This shows that the members of the city-based Cabinet have forgotten their roots and have forgotten about rebuilding our towns and villages in rural Ireland. We could have sustainable business and jobs. We would be able to come up with a network for transport. However, the Government is cutting us off. It has killed rural Ireland, the place from where it first started itself.

We need to be funded. We have people with families. We have people who want to build in the local areas but there is no infrastructure. The Minister said that this morning on the radio. Housing for All is not housing for all. The Government is not investing in infrastructure in the rural areas that we want to rebuild, namely, the towns and villages with 2,000 and 3,000 people in places where there is no more infrastructure. The Government has promised it. I have seen all the lists it has given to Uisce Éireann. It has promised there will be engineers in by 2026, 2029, 2030 - all these years gone out again, but Fianna Fáil has forgotten about the 40 years it has already promised. All these people would support local economies if they could build locally. We are talking about planning that is outdated for people who want to build on their own land. The Government waived planning permission fees but the planning guidelines will not allow the people in question to build there in the first place.

We are down, then, to ribbon development, and they are down to sightlines. Our planning is completely outdated. It is also completely one-sided to a city base that the Government says it wants to build. Those opposite have to remember that Ireland is an island where everyone should have equality and where people should be entitled to build on their own land and come home to their own communities, whether these are located in towns or villages. The responsibility lies with the Minister to provide the funding for infrastructure. Uisce Éireann has failed because it does not have the contractors to do the work. Give the funding to the local authorities. Use a developer-led approach and pay the developers to put in the infrastructure in rural Ireland like they are being paid to build apartments in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. The Government is not doing it in the counties. The Government should pay developers to put in infrastructure if it cannot deliver it. That will rebuild the towns and villages in Ireland. They will support the cities and the cities will support them. It will support transport and infrastructure for everyone, that we can all live and work together.

We have seen through Covid when broadband was on its knees again we were the last to get everything. We are still struggling with it. We want to build rural Ireland. We want towns and villages to be sustainable. We want people to come home and be able to live in their own areas. We talk about modular housing. There are seven different types of modular houses we can build, from log cabins to timber frame to block build to concrete build to insulating concrete formwork build. I have looked at all of them. Yes, they are workable in certain areas. The only thing we are short of to build modular houses is infrastructure. There are people who have got mortgages and who want to build houses. If they could get sites in towns or villages, they would build houses. They cannot do that because of the Government's failure to invest in infrastructure.

I ask the Minister to look at all the funding he is giving to developers in respect of city-based projects. I ask him to turn that around for developer-led, council-led or Government-led funding to go into infrastructure and let it be led by them. Do not forget from where Fianna Fáil first started out. Do not forget them. Bruree is where it started. That is a rural area. Since Fianna Fáil has come up here, it has gone completely Dublin led and city led. In Cork, there are the three Ministers and the Tánaiste. It is city led. Do not forget where it all started, and do not forget to look after the people who walk the roads and work in communities. The community spirit we have in the counties is nothing like we will ever see in the city. They all pull together and they never forgot their roots like I hope the Minister will never forget his family. Remember where your family started. Put the investment into rural Ireland in the same way it is being put into the cities. Protect our generation and those to come, and do not forget us. It looks now like the Government has forgotten us.

Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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Planning laws in rural areas are put together to make sure people are refused planning. That is the situation I find for many of my constituents in Cork South-West. Young couples starting off are being refused planning all over west Cork and other areas. Scenic landscape is thrown in as one of the excuses. Someone says, "Oh, you are coming out onto the N71 even though there are five houses on the same road in Rosscarbery". I can name them one after the other. Barryroe is one. I can name places in respect of which issues have been raised with me recently. One young lady spent €10,000 on planning - imagine that - but, having done everything right, she was still refused. That is the kind of situation our people in. It is sad to hear Fianna Fáil Deputies and prospective Fianna Fáil councillors in west Cork spinning waffle about planning while their party has been in government or in a confidence and supply arrangement with Fine Gael for decades now. Both have played a major part in making sure that young people in places like Adrigole, Clonakilty, Goleen, Barryroe, Kilcrohane and Ballinspittle cannot get planning.

In order for rural communities to grow, immediate improvements in local sewerage and water infrastructure need to be considered. There are numerous towns in west Cork - and, I presume, throughout the country - that have inadequate sewerage systems. People cannot build or extend. It is not happening. It is pointless for the Minister to inform me that it is. I will take him down to west Cork and show him a whole lot of places where development cannot be carried out.

People want to build in and move back to these communities, but they are continually being refused due to issues with sewerage and water. These are some of the same issues communities have been working on improving for the past 20 years, although they cannot get funding.

The Minister tabled an amendment to the motion that refers to rural regeneration funding. I am not sure whether the Government looked at our motion properly as it is about planning and the future of rural communities. Rural regeneration funding is a nod-and-wink fund for Ministers. I do not care what anybody says. I am willing to say that openly because I saw what happened in Schull. A fantastic, top-class project seeking rural regeneration funding was shovel-ready after the local community spent tens of thousands of euro on it. Some members of the voluntary group were brought up here to be given the rural regeneration funding, as well as a little clap on the back and a photo with the then Minister of State. After they went home, however, the funding went to some Minister who was going to lose a seat in another constituency. That is an astonishing situation of abuse of funding that belongs to the State.

Fianna Fáil no longer represents rural communities. That is the bottom line. The Minister can tell me I am wrong. He should talk to his own councillors, because they are terribly disappointed with the way things have gone. I am speaking about the sitting councillors, because potential new councillors are dreaming that everybody else is to blame for the planning regulations. An Bord Pleanála has become a dysfunctional organisation that is neither efficient nor effective. The time has come for it to be overhauled or scrapped and replaced. Statutory timelines of no greater than eight weeks should be introduced for the board to deal with all applications to dramatically reduce waiting times. Take the example of the Kinsale playschool, which was part of a development that was meant to go ahead. That playschool was needed. People are waiting for months because An Bord Pleanála has decided it must make a decision on it. Those people are continually contacting me about this because of its importance to the future development of a growing area like Kinsale.

A new €20,000 grant aid package should be introduced for anyone who wishes to build a permanent one-off house on their own land. A first-time buyer's grant can be incredibly important for young people who wish to build a home. Building a home is a significant financial investment. For many young people it is difficult enough to save money for a down payment, let alone meet the full cost of a new build. I met a woman in Timoleague who said her son could almost build a house himself, but he is not allowed to do so because of the regulations that are in place. She said the planning permission will break him before he gets any further but that even if he did get to proceed, there are other regulations in place. He would have to get this fellow and that fellow with letters after their names involved. When I built a house in Lowertown years ago, I did it myself. Bits and pieces of the work were done by neighbours. We worked together. We got a fine house built and we all lived there. That was the way to do it. We could still do that today.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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It is still standing.

Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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It is still standing, thank God. Many a gale has come up over Mizen Head and, by jeepers, it struck us, but it did not knock the house. I tell the Minister a person cannot build a house today. A young person or couple are stifled by costs. About €100,000 is added to the build before it can even get off the ground. A first-time buyer's grant would alleviate some of this financial burden and make it more feasible for young people to realise their dream of building their own homes. In addition, by incentivising young people to invest in property, the grant could help the long-term sustainability and growth of Ireland's housing market. It could also help promote the development of more affordable, energy-efficient homes that meet the needs of Ireland's changing demographics. A first-time buyer's grant can be an important tool for promoting homeownership and supporting the next generation of homeowners in Ireland. The first-time buyer's grant was introduced to help with housebuilding in the 1970s, but the scheme was abolished in 2002. A similar scheme, which offered up to €5,000 in the mainland Gaeltacht areas and €15,000 on islands, existed until Fianna Fáil and the Green Party abolished it in 2009. Perhaps I should say Fianna Fáil and its buddies in the Green Party.

The motion calls for the Croí Cónaithe towns scheme to be amended to include properties vacant for more than 30 days in order to boost the availability of higher quality rental accommodation. Otherwise, people may be forced to keep their properties. People want to build. They will easily stay in Portakabins, timber houses or whatever. The Government is not supporting young people.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am not going to be shouting at the Minister because I want to work with him. I want to try to reach a solution whereby we are all working together to ensure people are able to have homes, whether that is through people building homes for themselves, the local authority building them or private people who want to own properties and rent them out. We must try to have a mix. The shouting and roaring of the Opposition has failed and the workings of the Government have failed, so we need to look at this in a cold, hard, practical manner.

I ask the Minister when we are going to stop the practice of Deputies objecting to houses being built. It does not make sense for some Deputies to be saying they want houses, on the one hand, only for the same Deputies to subsequently be objecting to houses, on the other. That is the total opposite of what should be happening. It must be called out for what it is. Many people are looking at it and asking why Deputies are objecting to houses being built.

Another issue is that in County Kerry, for example, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, is interfering, meddling and sticking its nose into our business when young people want to apply for planning permission. Farmers are experiencing this because of where their lands are located. An example of this is on the side of the Ring of Kerry road. The only entrance these people can have is onto the Ring of Kerry road or maybe a road off that. That young boy or girl is getting up in the morning and going to work. He or she might be farming full-time or part-time, but he or she is not looking for the Minister to do anything for him or her. What he or she wants is to get a piece of paper with "planning permission granted" written on it. That is all these people want from the State, but what they are getting is TII sticking its big, horrible nose into their business. It is not the Minister's fault, but I am asking him to talk to the Minister for Transport, who does not like houses, does not like cars and does not like anything. At this stage, I would say that he does not like himself. TII will have to be hauled in and told to stop writing its dirty, horrible observations, as it refers to them. These are outright objections. The planners we are dealing with - and I thank the planners in Kerry-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am not sure that is appropriate parliamentary language in relation to a submission. The Deputy might take that on board.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, but what if it is a fact? If a person in TII-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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It is the description.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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-----writes a horrible, poisonous letter against a young, respectable person who is seeking planning permission and states that that individual should not have the right to have his or her entrance on the road, I say to hell with the person in TII and their dirty, horrible letter. I ask the people in TII to do something more important, namely, build bloody roads and bypasses, modernise our road network and give up sticking their noses into planning permission.

I want to talk about cabins being built, whether they are made of timber or using other methods. We must be more open to that. Local authorities must be given direction that, in the context of county development plans, they should be more open to accepting that. It happens in other countries. We must realise there is a housing crisis. We cannot be living in this idyllic world where everything has to be as it was before. If someone can erect a building at the back of another, for example, and if a young couple can live there and get a start in life, what in the name of God is wrong with that? If there is a garage that can be converted, the owner should be encouraged to proceed and should not be dissuaded from doing so. Obstacles should not be put in their way.

We are looking to instruct the Minister to publish the long-promised new rural housing guidelines to bring clarity and certainty to rural communities and to ensure that new rural planning guidelines allow for planning permission to be given for rural housing in all rural areas for those who have a genuine housing need. We call for the Government to relax the outdated laws in order to allow sustainable log cabin units to be constructed without unnecessary planning permission requirements. This can be done by amending the planning regulations to facilitate the construction of temporary or permanent structures for residential purposes on family-owned land in rural areas. We call for it to extend the help-to-buy scheme to first-time buyers who wish to buy a second-hand house or apartment, to introduce a new €20,000 grant aid package for anyone who wishes to build a permanent one-off house on his or her own lands and to amend the Croí Cónaithe towns scheme to include properties that are vacant for more than 30 days. We should forget about the notion of two years. Is the Government trying to stop houses being vacant for two years? Is it trying to stop people applying for the grant? It has made three messes already with that grant. I welcomed it when the Minister announced it, but why in the name of God did the Government make a mess of it? The proof that the Government made a mess of it is that it has amended it twice already. The Minister still has not given clarity to the local authorities about the amendments he made ten days ago. Why is that? Does he want to keep it a secret? It is a great scheme, why is it the case that if one rings any local authority and asks what directive it received from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, one will be told the Minister has not sent a directive yet. Local authorities do not know, for example, how long a person who gets that grant and rents a house must rent it for.

Can the house be sold after the grant being got for it and the house brought back into use? Can it be sold? There is no clarity. Local authorities do not have the application forms yet. We have the application forms from ten days' ago, but we do not have the new ones. We are being told that in certain cases new ones are required. Is the Department keeping it a secret or what?

We need a robust, independent Bord Pleanála that commands confidence. An Bord Pleanála that is there today does not command confidence because it is up to its neck in rubbish, where it has reports from its own inspectors and did not abide by its own reports.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I rarely interfere in a debate, and the robustness of debate is very important, but the descriptions attached to a certain agency that puts in submissions is not okay.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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What did I say wrong?

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am not going into it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I ask the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to tell me what I said wrong.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am not repeating it. The Deputy can look at the record.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I said it was horrible-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I ask the Deputy to reflect on it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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-----and that it was sticking its noses into other people's business.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I have no difficulty with that-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I stand over that.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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-----but, the Deputy said a lot more than that. I ask him to reflect on it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I said it was horrible and I said it had a poison pen.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am not allowing the Deputy to repeat it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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My late father always said you can say whatever one like if you are telling the truth.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am going to Deputy O'Donoghue.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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TII is sticking its dirty noses into our business.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Will the Deputy resume his seat?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will. But you started it.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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I will contribute at the outset of this.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Cé mhéad nóiméad atá aige?

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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I did not acknowledge at the start of the debate that I am a building contractor. I have been building for more than 30 years. I have never done any work for the local authorities or the Department; it is one-off. I put that on the record before I start.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I have done the same.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Is there anyone else?

Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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I built my own house.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "That Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following: "acknowledges that:

— regarding progress being made on housing delivery and the commitment to rural areas:

— the Government is comprehensively addressing the housing crisis through a suite of actions to accelerate the delivery of new homes whilst also continuing to deliver on the fundamental reforms set out in the Plan;

— central to the Plan are measures to accelerate the delivery of new homes whilst also continuing to deliver on the fundamental reforms set out in the Plan;

— Housing for All: A New Housing Plan commits Government to the largest State-led building programme ever and a sustainable supply of social and affordable homes to buy or rent, including cost rental homes, a new form of long-term sustainable home rental;

— the Plan also details ways to maximise the efficient use of housing stock and bring back vacant dwellings into long-term residential use;

— the Government supports the development of rural areas and the need to ensure that they continue to be viable places to live, work and invest in;

— rural communities are being supported and invested in by Government, including under the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (RRDF) for 215 projects worth a total of €542 million and also the Town and Village Renewal Scheme (TVRS) which, since its introduction in 2016, has allocated over €149 million to more than 1,600 projects across Ireland; and

— Our Rural Future 2021-2025 features a number of key funding streams for rural development, including CLÁR (€7.85 million), the Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme (€16 million) and the Local Improvement Scheme [roads] (€12 million);

— regarding planning legislative reform and timelines for An Bord Pleanála:

— the Government is progressing legislative reform of the planning system, with the Draft Planning and Development Bill representing the most comprehensive review of planning since the Act was first drafted;

— the structures of the planning legislation have been reviewed to ensure alignment and consistency, both with our European and environmental obligations and in relation to the various tiers of national, regional and local plan making;

— users of the planning system will benefit from greater certainty through the introduction of a range of statutory and mandatory timelines across the various consenting processes involved;

— An Bord Pleanála, which will be called An Coimisiún Pleanála, will undergo an organisational restructure and will be subject to statutory timelines, introduced over a phased basis; and

— the draft Bill improves planning processes by ensuring provisions align with policy and are more accessible and streamlined from a legal perspective, putting plan-making at the centre of the planning system, whilst also introducing statutory timelines for planning decisions;

— regarding the Croí Cónaithe (Towns) Fund:

— the Croí Cónaithe (Towns) Fund is successfully supporting the refurbishment of vacant and derelict properties through the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant and the provision of serviced sites for people to build their own homes through the Ready to Build Scheme; and

— on 1st May, the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant was expanded to build on the success of the scheme to date and further increase the number of vacant and derelict properties brought back into use; and details of the expansion are as follows:

(i) the inclusion of one property which will be made available for rent, by the owner, in addition to one grant for a property which will be a principal private residence of the applicant i.e. a maximum of two applications for a grant will be available;

(ii) changing the eligibility date, which is currently 1993 for the build date, to include vacant and derelict properties built up to and including 2007; and

(iii) increase of the current maximum grant rates from €30,000 to €50,000 for vacant properties and from €50,000 to €70,000 for derelict properties;

— regarding the Help to Buy (HTB) scheme:

— an increase in the supply of new housing remains a priority aim of Government policy and, for this reason, the HTB scheme is specifically designed to encourage an increase in demand for purchased or self-built new homes in order to support the construction of such properties;

— to this end, the definition of a qualifying residence for the purposes of HTB is very specific; that is, the residence must be a new building which was not, at any time, used or suitable for use as a dwelling;

— however, in circumstances where a residential property has been knocked down and rebuilt or where a non-residential property is converted for residential use, then it may be considered new; and

— a move to include second-hand residential properties within the scope of the scheme itself would not improve the effectiveness of the relief, rather, it could serve to dilute the incentive effect of the measure that encourages additional construction; and expanding HTB in this way would provide no incentive effect to encourage the building of new homes and would be likely to have a significant deadweight element and a high Exchequer cost;

— regarding grant-aid packages for one-off home builders:

— in order to activate planning permissions for new homes the Government has provided for a Temporary Time-Limited Waiver in respect of development contributions to local authorities as well as Uisce Éireann water and waste water connection charges;

— this applies to all permitted residential developments that commence on site within one year of 25th April, 2023 (i.e. not later than 24th April, 2024) and is completed not later than 31st December, 2025; and

— it is estimated that the combined average benefit of introducing the development contribution waiver and Uisce Éireann connection charge refund arrangements would be of the order of circa €12,651 per housing unit based on a national average;

— with regard to the planning system and rural housing:

— the National Planning Framework (NPF) and Our Rural Future (ORF) are strategic national policies that aim to support the overall rural pattern of development in Ireland and deliver strengthened and diversified rural communities by encouraging growth;

— the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) is the statutory body charged with ensuring that the policies of Development Plans and Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSESs) are consistent with national planning policy, guidelines and legislation;

— the OPR must balance the need to provide new homes sustainably within settlements while in tandem accommodating housing in the surrounding rural area;

— the three Regional Assemblies have adopted their Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSES) since and 29 of the 31 city and county development plans have been reviewed to date since the publication of the NPF and their policies on rural housing are consistent with national policy requirements;

— the existing Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines were issued in 2005 as Ministerial Guidance under Section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000; updated Rural Housing Planning Guidelines are currently being prepared and will be subject to legal review, then issued for a period of public consultation before finalisation;

— in terms of providing approvals for new development, the planning system in Ireland continues to deliver substantial planning permissions for new homes every year in Ireland - including 42,991 permitted homes in 2021 and 34,177 in 2022; this includes permission for 7,499 once-off homes in 2021 and 6,924 in 2022 – the vast majority of which are located in rural areas indicating strong provision of new housing in all rural areas;

— there is no 'cap' or 'ban' on the granting of planning permission for new homes in rural areas; planning authorities provide a target for new housing as part of their statutory development plan process, including for rural areas outside of their towns and villages; nationally, rural housing continues to be an important component of overall new housing delivery with circa 4,000-5,000 new rural dwellings being built annually; and there was strong performance in 2022 with 4,743 new dwellings built in rural areas according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) which was up 16.6 per cent from 4,069 in 2021;

— the challenges faced by An Bord Pleanála, with regard to the capacity of the Board and the pressures in terms of workload for the inspectorate to process decisions in a timely manner, have been addressed through significant efforts to facilitate additional board members and increases in staffing; and these measures are enabling the backlog of decisions to be tackled and increased permissions for new residential development; and

— the allocation of resources for local authorities to fulfill their planning functions in a timely manner is also a priority for Government and funding of €5 million has been provided for 2023 to assist in the staffing of local authorities;

— in relation to facilitating log cabins as a form of housing:

— national policy and legislation does not dictate the types of materials that must be used for housing, and accordingly there is no prohibition on the use of timber construction from a planning perspective subject to the overall proposal for planning permission being satisfactory having regard to national, regional and local planning policy;

— a wide range of exemptions from planning permission are provided for under the Planning and Development Act and the Planning and Development Regulations; and these exemptions are provided for when they are considered to be consistent with proper planning and sustainable development;

— regulations currently provide for an exemption in respect of the construction, erection or placing within the curtilage of a house of any tent, awning, shade or other object, greenhouse, garage, store, shed or other similar structure - subject to conditions and limitations;

— timber construction or timber materials used in the construction are facilitated under the exemption, which relates to the sole use of the home owner and does not entail the subdivision of an existing residential plot to establish separate dwelling on any given site;

— where an independent new dwelling is desired, an application for planning permission is required;

— an application for such permission provides an opportunity for members of the public to make submissions or observations in respect of the proposed development, while also providing the planning authority with the opportunity to consider a range of potential impacts in the area;

— the proposal may give rise to requirements for access, car parking, and amenity space as well as separate services such as water, drainage and electricity and may have implications for neighbouring occupiers and the visual amenity and character of the area and thus require assessment, with the result that a 'one-size fits all' planning exemption regime is not appropriate or consistent with proper planning and sustainable development;

— for these reasons it is appropriate that the subdivision of existing dwellings and/or residential plots is subject to seeking planning permission, thereby allowing for proper public participation and environmental assessment in line with the plan-led approach that underpins the planning system; and

— with regard to compliance with the Building Regulations or standards, it is critical to ensure that products, systems, and ultimately buildings which are comprised of such products and systems, are designed, constructed, and certified, as fit for purpose, having regard to their intended end use; and

— in relation to vehicular access for housing sites to national roads:

— planning applications for rural one-off housing are required to adhere to Spatial Planning and National Roads guidelines published by the then Department of Environment Community and Local Government in 2012;

— Section 2.5 of these Guidelines require planning authorities to avoid the creation of any additional accesses onto National Roads where speed limits of greater than 60 kilometers per hour apply; and this is in the interest of protecting the operational capacity of national road infrastructure and traffic safety; and

— the Guidelines provide for a less restrictive policy approach to be taken for certain transitional areas and lightly trafficked stretches of National Secondary Routes following assessment and in consultation with the National Roads Authority.".

I thank Deputies for the motion they have put forward and for the spirit in which it is put forward. I know Deputies have genuinely held concerns and views with regard to rural housing. I will use the opportunity this morning to outline what we are doing and answer a few of the questions they have put.

At the outset, I assure Deputy Healy-Rae I have never once objected to a rural one-off house in all my time as a public representative. I understand rural housing and planning. I am in one of the few Dublin constituencies that has a very large rural catchment area and I understand the importance of rural regeneration and ensuring our towns and villages are vibrant places in which to live, throughout the country. I reject any suggestions by Deputy O'Donoghue with regard to this Dublin-centric approach. That is not the case. The facts need to be borne out, which I have tabled in the Government amendment to the motion, because it is important when we talk about rural planning that we acknowledge what is actually granted. Granted permissions last year were just short of 7,000 for rural one-off houses. Some 5,522 rural one-off homes were completed last year, which is up approximately 16.6% on the previous year. I am making the point that for Deputies to come in and suggest no planning or one-off houses are granted is not correct.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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There is no infrastructure.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I did not interrupt the Deputy once. Let me outline the case. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, will be wrapping up the debate, as the Standing Orders permit, as the Minister of State with responsibility for planning. He will deal with more details with regard to the planning piece.

Vacancy grants have been very effective. They have worked. More than 1,600 applications have come in, about 800 of which are actually approved already. The rest are going through the system. We made some significant changes to take effect from 1 May. Local authorities have been briefed and the circular is issuing today. The grant rate increases are substantial. There is €20,000 on both. Some €50,000 is now available for a vacant property and I have moved the date from 1993 to 2007. Some €70,000 is available for a derelict property, which is not linked to the value or purchase of the property. It allows one rental property as well.

In the motion, which I know is well-intentioned, there is the idea that the grant would be expanded to any property that is vacant for 30 days or more. No criteria are set around it. Does someone leave the house for 31 days and be able to apply for a grant of €50,000? I do not think that is what the Deputies want, but that is how it reads. We need to make sure we build on the success of the scheme so far, because it has been particularly successful. I have met many young couples and households who have been able to buy homes in their areas now, where the State has been able to give up to €70,000 of grants, not including the SEAI grant, which is approximately €29,000. It is a very significant sum of up to €100,000. That is what we want to see and we want to tackle vacancy across our cities, counties, villages and rural areas. The whole focus is on this and on something that can be implemented and has a simple application and has real and tangible supports for people. Supporting that is the vacant homes officers who are in place on a full-time basis in every local authority in the country and the establishment of a vacant homes team within my own Department to oversee it. It is working well. I appreciate and recognise the support that has been given by some Deputies in that regard.

Unquestionably, there are issues with regard to the provision of wastewater and water services throughout the country. Approximately 800 settlements throughout the country have no wastewater capacity at all, but how we tackle that is by ensuring that development happens. Uisce Éireann has a €6 billion capital programme. It has the money and it is rolling that out. I travelled the country. I have been in the Deputy O'Donoghue's county. I met him in Patrickswell, where we had the very first private development in 35 years, which I know the Deputy supported. The development is being supported. Some 75% of applicants to that scheme are using the help-to-buy grant or the first home scheme to purchase in that area.

Recognising the fact the motion is put down to highlight additional measures the Deputies would like to take, they have to acknowledge what is being done already. To come in to the House and say nothing is happening and there is no regard for rural Ireland and housing in our rural areas, I can say as the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, is not correct. We need to ensure there is good planning in our rural areas. I support rural housing. I support good rural planning. Such planning needs to be done in a proper way and underpinned by the rural planning guidelines, which have not been updated since about 2011. They will be published for public consultation shortly. We will also be publishing new regulations with regard to Gaeltacht planning, which we have been working on too. Very shortly, there will be significant changes with regard to the language test, which we have been working on with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. I gave a commitment that we would do so.

Furthermore, a significant and tangible change which has not been supported by many Members of the Opposition - I am not saying the motion's sponsors are included - is the timebound waiving of development levies and water connection charges. It applies to all developments and includes rural one-off houses and small developments which we want to happen for SME builders. In the short space of time since that has been announced, I already have specific examples throughout the country of schemes that would not have otherwise started and will be able to boost supply further into next year. Last year, we delivered 30,000 new homes, some 5,600 of which were rural one-off homes. We intend to do more this year and to get more commencements going for next year. The timebound measure is a real saving for people - the average is approximately €15,000 - throughout the country, on the basis of commencement this year and completion of the development or rural one-off house by the end of December.

With regard to An Bord Pleanála, I do not mean to be any way facetious or critical, but when I look at the motion, the suggestion from the Rural Independents is threefold with regard to the board. They make their own views about the bord, in that it is "neither efficient nor effective". We have work to do there and I will fill the Deputies in on that. The motion also states that "the time has come for it to be overhauled, scrapped, or replaced". I am not being funny, but which do we do? Do we scrap it? What happens then? We need to reform the bord. We have 15 board members in place. We have a new chairperson and a new deputy chairperson. The bord is being resourced to a degree it has never been resourced before and I assure Deputies it is working through its backlog and is particularly focused on those developments or homes that are over their time for decisions. The backlog is being worked on. There has never been more members on the board. That is the reason I have not accepted the motion and put down an amendment to the motion. There are two examples, one of which is with regard to the bord being "overhauled, scrapped, or replaced".

The other example relates to the vacancy grant, which some of the Rural Independent Group Deputies do support while others, as well as Sinn Féin, do not. Can we really apply it to properties that have just been vacant for 30 days or more? If someone just leaves the house and goes on holiday for two months, are they then able to claim a grant of €50,000 when they come back? That is not what we want it for. We also have to look at how we can further develop our towns and villages, and that is what we are doing. It takes time to turn that around but I am quite optimistic on the basis of the response not least to the vacant homes grant, the Croí Cónaithe grant and the waiving of development levies and Uisce Éireann connection charges. There has been a good response to that.

In respect of TII, I do not agree with the manner in which Deputy Michael Healy-Rae put that point forward but it is raised me regularly and I do see issues with regard to some of the submissions made by TII that inhibit developments not just of one-off rural but of other settlements too. It is a great frustration, especially to prospective homeowners but also to many Deputies. I have come across cases such as that. I commit to engaging with the agency, as we have done previously. Although it is not under my remit, it is entitled under law to make observations in that regard. There are discrepancies between some of its submissions and observations. Perhaps it made those observations on the basis of a desktop review as opposed to seeing the reality on the ground. I give the House my commitment that I will do that.

I appreciate the remarks the Deputies made. As I said, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, will conclude the debate. I am going to meet defective concrete block-affected homeowners at 11 a.m., to which I had agreed before this debate was tabled, but I will listen to the remainder of it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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On a point of clarification, will the circular issue to all the local authorities today?

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

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Minister.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am sharing time with Deputy Nolan. I am not exaggerating when I say planning permission in Kerry is very difficult to obtain at present and is becoming more and more difficult as the days go on. I have raised previously with the Taoiseach the issue of national primary and national secondary roads. It is ironic to think it was he who gave TII the powers in 2013, as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, that have prevented a whole lot of people and families, whether they are farmers or relatives of farmers, from getting permission to exit through their own entrance onto a national primary or national secondary road, even if there is an existing entrance.

In the most recent debate I had with the Taoiseach, he stated he did not agree with a blanket ban. Engineers in Kerry County Council know the rules and regulations as regards safety when coming onto such a road and the distances outside that are required but, as it stands, there is no planning to be had along a national primary or national secondary road. We have somewhere between 450 miles and 500 miles of national primary and national secondary roads. That is the extent to which people are deprived. Kerry has more miles of that category of road than any other county, given there are motorways going through the rest of them. If someone were coming out onto a county council road that has been taken in charge, they could access the primary road no bother, but if they were coming out with right of way where there were, say, 20 houses and the road had not been taken in charge, such a person would be denied the right even to apply for planning permission and it would be a waste of time.

In Killarney, we are further impacted by the national park to the south of the town. A Minister stated in the Chamber the other day that he was going to issue a compulsory purchase order, CPO, for more lands around the 26,000 acres we have in Killarney already. When is enough enough? People are trying to provide houses for themselves. Then there is the scenario where the proposed route for the new Killarney bypass, from Farranfore to Lissyviggeen and from Lissyviggeen to the Kenmare road coming into Killarney, has been going on for 20 years and about four routes have been proposed. Hundreds of acres have been sterilised. People cannot apply for planning permission. When they ask TII whether their site is within that range, hundreds of fellas have been denied the right again to apply.

Other areas are under significant urban pressure. On the instructions of the Planning Regulator, a whole lot of additional lands in Kilcummin, Teernaboul and into Rathmore and Barraduff have been placed under significant urban pressure, which means that only a farmer's son or daughter can get planning permission, yet the young fella next door might have lived all his life there. It is like the girl in Kilcummin the other day who had found a site 1 km away from her home. She lives 10 miles out from Killarney. She has no hope of getting planning permission. No services are coming out there. She just wants to build a house to be near her parents. The only place to go is into towns or villages, but then there are no treatment plants. We have a whole raft of them, up to 30, waiting to be rejuvenated or extended or, in places such as Scartaglin or Curragh, to get a treatment plant. They do not have one.

I appeal to the Minister to do something to allow people to get planning permission or to make it easier. These people will build the house themselves and pay for it, but they are finding it impossible to get planning permission. Their only option at present, in that vast area, is to go into Killarney to try to buy a house for €700,000. That is not on. The people of Kerry, including east Kerry, are totally blackguarded.

Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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As the saying goes, there are few certainties in life apart from death and taxes, but perhaps we could revise that and add the dysfunctional Irish planning system. For how long have we been debating this issue in these Houses? I recall standing here more than two years ago debating the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2021, which was meant to address some of the very issues we are again here debating today. Indeed, we have seen over recent years that regardless of what laws these Houses put in place, nothing seems to impact on the chronic level of dysfunctionality that has persisted for decades. This is a cultural issue, a culture of extreme bureaucracy. We still face major challenges relating to the completion of construction projects. Time and again, I have called on the Government to provide immediate clarification on exactly when the revised rural housing guidelines for planning authorities will be published. In fact, I received replies to parliamentary questions more than two years ago in which the then Minister would confirm only that the updated guidelines would be available later in 2021. Here we are in May 2023 and there is still no sign of these guidelines. These issues were highlighted in recent weeks by Macra na Feirme, when it raised the main issues that are coming to the fore for its members. They included assessing affordable housing and cumbersome planning application guidelines, and the lack of planning for the future of our rural communities informed by rural people.

The Minister and the Government often talk about the complexity of this issue, such as the need for environmental assessments and internal and external consultation, but this is precisely the line that has been trotted out by the Department for years. What of planning guidelines by local authorities for wind turbines and setback distances? Who wants to build a home next to a mountain of wind turbines? Where is the urgency on those matters? There is also a deep lack of flexibility on these very issues.

Indeed, in February of last year the then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, confirmed to me in a reply to a parliamentary question that the revised rural housing guidelines for planning authorities would be published "within the next six months at the latest". The Minister will be more than aware that the revised and updated guidelines have been eagerly awaited since 2017 when a working group was established within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to examine the issue of rural housing including so-called once-off housing.

Since then, we have also had to deal with well-resourced outfits like An Taisce trying to stifle the planning and development of major enterprises in rural areas. Without rural enterprise there can be no rural housing because where are people to work? Thankfully, the Supreme Court decision in the Glanbia case was a victory of common sense against An Taisce and at the time, along with my colleagues here, I welcomed that. An Taisce has an overzealous and inflexible attitude towards environmental or emissions targets. At the time, even the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, welcomed the Supreme Court judgment and said there was a clear need for a fair and timely planning system to be in place. He went on to say that this would be achieved once the Attorney General completed his re-examination of the entire legislative framework underpinning the current planning system.

I have often highlighted the massive planning delays that plagued the multimillion euro investment at Banagher Chilling in County Offaly, my own county, before final approval was eventually given. However, the unfortunate fact of the matter was that An Bord Pleanála simply did not fulfil its statutory obligations, particularly when it came to section 126 of the Planning and Development Act which provides that every planning appeal is to be determined within 18 weeks. I have no wish to personalise this against the staff of An Bord Pleanála. I am sure they are just as frustrated as the rest of us with the growing need to assess even the most minor projects against a library shelf of EU regulations. We need a much more simplified system because the one we have is simply not working.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Rural Independent Group for tabling this motion today and allowing us to have a very important debate. Sinn Féin has long argued on the floor of the Dáil and Seanad that the housing crisis is not just an urban phenomenon. It is not just in the cities or the larger towns. It affects every town, village and rural parish in the State. It is important to understand why it is that way. At the very centre of the housing crisis in urban and rural areas is the failure of Government to deliver a sufficient volume of social homes, affordable rental and affordable purchase homes, including self-built homes in rural areas. We have had debate after debate about the Government targets not only being too low but being missed. Here we are talking about a lack of affordable homes and the Minister continues to underspend his capital budget, with a 32% underspend in the first four months of this year. That money could and should be spent meeting housing need.

We also do not talk enough about the scandal of the affordable housing fund itself because, of course, as rural Deputies will know, it hardly applies to rural counties at all. In fact, when it was first established it only applied to areas that allegedly had an affordability test which excluded every single rural county in the State. Then, under pressure from those local authorities and politicians, it was extended to some extent but in many areas it still either does not apply or is applied to such an extent that the number of homes will simply not be enough. That is before we raise the fact that only handfuls of homes are being delivered under that scheme.

Contrary to the misinformation of the Minister, Sinn Féin is not against the Croí Cónaithe grant scheme; we have never opposed it. We have said from the outset that is badly designed, underfunded and lacks ambition. We just have a better proposal that would put a far greater number of derelict and vacant properties back into use, including for people to purchase in towns and villages, but, of course, the Minister would much prefer to misrepresent us than acknowledge that his own scheme, which has now changed twice, is simply not fit for purpose.

I have considerable sympathy for some of the arguments I have heard to date with respect to planning. Certain rural areas are in decline. It is not only that their populations are stagnating but their populations are falling. That is happening in villages, small towns and countryside areas. It is a scandal that a working group has spent six years preparing the new rural planning guidelines which are not yet published. Even worse, all of our local authorities, including those in Kerry, Limerick and Cork, have completed their development plan reviews without having those guidelines which creates uncertainty for planners in our local authorities, for communities as well as for individuals trying to get access to homes in a way that is sustainable. The people who live in rural Ireland are the ones who have the greatest vested interest in good-quality sustainable planning, yet Government policy is militating against that. My understanding is those draft planning guidelines were ready over two years ago but because of divisions on the backbenches of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, they have yet to be published. I eagerly await their publication by the Minister.

The real irony of Government policy in this respect is that, on the one hand, particularly in proximity to cities and towns, Government wants to restrict planning in the perimeter areas but, at the same time, Government is failing to provide affordable housing or affordable housing options in those towns and villages. Government cannot have it at both ways and it needs to act.

Sinn Féin has real alternatives. Increasing the targets and funding for social and affordable homes in rural and urban areas is absolutely key. The affordable housing fund could be used in really innovative ways, particularly in countryside areas to facilitate people who want to build their own homes in small sustainable clusters so they can live, work and continue to be part of those rural communities. We could have a much more proactive vacancy strategy with the local authorities taking the lead, not just for social housing but also for affordable rental and affordable purchase housing with the grant option that is necessary. Instead of delivering fewer than 600 vacant and derelict homes that are targeted under this Government scheme, a target of 2,000 over the next three years, we could be bringing in at least 4,000 vacant and derelict homes predominantly in towns and villages in rural counties every single year. That is what we need.

We also need specific plans in those countryside areas, in particular rural Gaeltachtaí where local authorities are able to give clear guidance to communities as to how they can sustain and grow their populations. I talk to a significant number of Gaeltacht planning officers as well as people living in those communities who desperately want this strategy to sustain and grow their communities.

Nobody has talked about the small and medium-sized builder. In the main, other than self-built houses, the vast majority of homes in rural areas are built by small builders. I talk to builders right across the country on a regular basis. They cannot access finance because Home Building Finance Ireland is a mess and the planning process is taking too long.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy should tell them about the development levy.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Government must do much more on high-grade timber products. We would like to see it do much more and we would like to see it's action on that.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I also welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. As someone who has grown up in a rural community, who still lives in a rural community and who would live nowhere else in the world, I know the importance of proper planning and getting planning right for our rural communities. As my colleague Deputy Ó Broin said, the housing crisis is not unique to our urban areas and larger towns. It is just as much a crisis in our rural communities. We need to get planning right for our rural communities. If we do not get it right, then houses are not built, families are not reared in rural communities, rural communities do not exist and they die. That is what happens if we do not get planning right. We lose so much more than just where that house is located; we lose an entire way of life that so many of us who live in rural Ireland enjoy. It is a place where we want to live and rear our families, but we need to be facilitated by Government to have the support and the services that follow those houses where they are built.

It has been said, and it is stated in this motion, that the rural planning guidelines need to be published. We have now been waiting for them for years. The current situation where local authorities have different rules here, there and everywhere does not work. We need to see those guidelines. They need to be fair and they need to consider people, like me, who typically are born in rural area, grow up and are reared in it, and want to live in it. They are the people we are talking about. As has also been said, there is depopulation in rural areas and addressing that needs to be part of the plan. In many cases, young people who grew up in a rural area want to live beside their ageing parents or near the family farm. That is where they want to live and that is how we need to be looking at this.

We also need to be building communities with all those services. Garda stations, post offices and schools have closed and those services have been lost. We need to do more than just build the houses; we need to build communities. That means services to sustain our rural communities so people can actually live where they want to live and are not discriminated against for living there.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I also live in rural Ireland in a rural area. I hear this debate about urban Ireland and rural Ireland, one-off housing and so on. I often hear people say it is unsustainable for people to live in rural areas, as if they were building a house hundreds of miles from anywhere. We have a network of roads and we build houses along those existing roads. We also have group water schemes that provide water, which is a critical part of the infrastructure in place in rural Ireland. Nobody builds a house that is not within at least one or two telegraph poles, which is about 100 m, of the ESB lines.

In the vast majority of areas in rural Ireland we have infrastructure but one aspect that is often brought up around one-off housing and rural housing in general is sewerage systems. When one considers the incidence of pollution in our rivers and lakes, most of it comes from either industry or agriculture. Of the small part that comes from sewage, most of that comes from town and village sewerage schemes that do not work properly, rather than from one-off houses and septic tanks that do not work properly. There is a problem in some places with septic tanks not working properly, but this is easily resolved. Engineering developments over the years have resolved such issues. Today, the mechanical treatment systems that go in for one-off rural housing treat the sewage twice as well as the sewage that is treated in a town system. If the sewerage system for one-off housing breaks down for one week or one month, it will take at least that long for the effluent to reach a river, whereas if a system breaks down for two days in a town, there is a huge pollution problem. These issues are easily resolved and can be sorted out.

We must ensure that rural people are given the opportunity to live where they were born, to send their children to the school they attended and to have their children play for the football team they played for. This is what people want to do in rural Ireland. In the parish where I live, the vast majority of people live in one-off rural houses. In County Leitrim, 90% of the people live in rural areas and small villages. Yet, we continually see this bias against people living in one-off houses or rural areas, as if it is a crime to live in one's own house. We need to recognise that we must provide for that as well. It is about balance. We must have proper planning. It cannot be a free-for-all but it can be done properly and appropriately, provided the Government works with people. As I said, the vast majority of people want to get on in life but they need support from the Government to do so.

Johnny Guirke (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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It was a disgrace that the Government only announced on 1 May the grants for older people and people with disabilities. That is a joke given that four months of the year have passed.

On one-off planning in rural Ireland, rural areas are facing significant challenges, with depopulation, ageing infrastructure, local schools finding it hard to keep their numbers up and GAA, soccer and other sports clubs amalgamating because of low numbers. One-off planning is a critical tool for addressing these challenges and ensuring the long-term sustainability of rural communities. By allowing individuals and families to build homes on their own land, we can create vibrant and thriving communities that are able to grow and adapt to changing circumstances, stop depopulation and keep rural schools and sports clubs going.

One-off planning also has significant economic benefits. It can help to create jobs in the construction and building sectors, which are vital to the rural economy. It can also help to attract new businesses and investment to rural areas, allowing them to contribute to the local community. One-off planning is a valuable tool for tackling the housing crisis in rural Ireland by providing more affordable and diverse housing options. We would be able to keep young people and families in rural areas and we could also create more diversity in the housing market, which is essential for meeting the housing needs of different demographics and lifestyles. For example, some people may prefer to live in a smaller, energy-efficient home, while others may require a larger home for their family. One-off planning can accommodate these different needs by allowing people to build different homes that are tailored to their specific needs or requirements.

Sinn Féin supports people living in the countryside. Addressing rural housing challenges must be done in a way that halts population decline, promotes vibrant communities and keeps schools and GAA clubs going. Families are struggling to put a roof over their heads because of the policies of this Government and previous Governments. In a housing crisis, An Bord Pleanála is holding up 70,000 houses that are awaiting a decision. That is almost two years of housing supply. Why is An Bord Pleanála not held to the same standards as local authority planners, with timelines for applications and penalties for missed deadlines, especially for one-off planning applications? This Government does not seem to understand the crisis in housing, be it urban or rural. One-off planning is vital to survival of rural Ireland.

Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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Ardaím go rímhinic na deacrachtaí atá ag daoine óga lonnú, nó athlonnú, ina gceantair dhúchais. Feicimid go rímhinic é freisin dóibh siúd a théann thar lear, b’fhéidir mar nach raibh post acu nó nach raibh deiseanna acu ina gceantar dúchais féin. Ansin tagann siad abhaile agus deir siad leo féin gur bhreá leo bheith ina gcónaí sa cheantar ina bhfuil a dtuistí ina gcónaí. Bíonn siad ag iarraidh a bpáistí a thógáil agus iad a chur ag an scoil chéanna ina raibh siad féin, an scoil atá fós ar oscailt nó atá ar tí dúnadh, ach ní féidir leo. Cén fáth? Mar nach bhfuil tada le fáil ar cíos, níl tada le ceannach agus níl teach sóisialta ar bith tógtha i gceantair iargúlta nó ar na hoileáin amach ón gcósta.

Ansin deir siad “Bhuel, b’fhéidir gur féidir liom teach a thógáil” agus ní éiríonn leo. Bíonn fáthanna éagsúla go ndeirtear leo nach bhfuil siad in ann teach a thógáil ach go rímhinic ní bhíonn siad in ann cruinniú réamh-phleanála a fháil. Chomh maith leis sin, níl an Rialtas tar éis na treoirlínte a fhoilsiú go fóill, cé go bhfuil daoine ag rá lá i ndiaidh lae gur chóir dó é sin a dhéanamh.

Ansin, muna féidir leis na daoine seo teach ar bith a fháil beidh orthu a gceantar dúchais a fhágáil. Ní hamháin nach mbeidh siad in ann a gclann a thógáil trí Ghaeilge sa bhealach céanna gur féidir leo nuair atá an ceantar ar fad ag labhairt i nGaeilge ach ciallaíonn sé freisin go m’fhéidir go mbeidh ar an scoil dúnadh mar gheall nach bhfuil páiste ar bith sa cheantar. B’fhéidir go gciallaíonn sé freisin nach mbeidh seirbhísí eile ar fáil mar gheall nach bhfuil an daonra ann. Tá go leor fadhbanna nuair nach bhfuil teaghlaigh óga in ann a gclann a thógáil i gceantair iargúlta.

Young people, especially those who live in rural Ireland and Connemara in particular, tell me they cannot buy, rent or build anywhere. They cannot do any of those three basic things. This has a massive knock-on impact on a rural community, be that as regards the Irish language or local schools and services. The Government needs to get its act together.

Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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As someone who grew up in a rural area, built a house on the farm I grew up on and lived there with my children who attended the same school I did, I certainly support people being allowed to live in a rural area. This is not to say that planning should not be sustainable - it must be and the environment must be protected - but we have to be fair to people who wish to live in a rural community.

I see depopulation occurring in many rural areas. It is having a detrimental effect on communities. We see the schools closing and sports clubs having to amalgamate and so on. I am thinking especially of west Cavan in my constituency as an area that is extremely depopulated. We can see vacant houses, some of them derelict, dotted around the place. People lived in that area at one time and there is no reason they should not be able to live in it again in the future.

All new county development plans should incorporate detailed local strategies based on the housing need and demand assessment, and we need to reverse or prevent population decline. Those plans must also include how the local authority would meet the social housing need for those who wish to live in a rural area. Again, because Cavan-Monaghan is a largely rural area, I have constituents who qualify for social housing and do not want to live in a town or village. They come to me and fill out the form on which rural housing is an option. They tick the option and they have a site but the local authority has not been building houses for social housing applicants for years. This issue needs to be addressed as well. Even if the local authority does not want to build houses, there are enough derelict houses in the countryside that it could buy and convert into social housing for people.

People are buying up derelict or vacant houses and doing them up because it is so difficult to get planning in a rural area now. This is a welcome development which is great to see. The Croí Cónaithe grant helps with that but it is sufficient to incentivise this work. It needs to be increased. Sinn Féin proposed a derelict sites levy to reduce levels of dereliction in rural areas and improve transparency. Getting planning permission is extremely difficult in rural areas. It is also costly. People pay large development levies but do not get the services that others get in towns and cities. This issue also needs to be addressed. The new rural housing guidelines need to simplify and reduce the costs of the planning process.

Farmers need to live on their farms but many other people also need to live in a rural area, for example, the teacher in the local rural school, the vet who wants to be close to the people he or she serves and so on.

Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Rural decline is a genuine concern for many communities. We have all heard of GP clinics closing because of the inability to attract GPs to rural areas. A case of this in County Tipperary has gained national attention as being symptomatic of a national problem. We have heard farmers speak of their concerns for the future, while investment in some rural towns and villages is seen as effectively being on the back burner. Tackling depopulation to ensure that we sustain communities is a focus of Sinn Féin. Ensuring new county development plans must have detailed local strategies based on the housing need demand assessments is crucial to this. Delivery can involve the better use of vacant and derelict buildings and land zoned for residential development in the countryside, villages and towns. We also need to adapt in order to be able to provide suitable, safe, long-life housing that can be constructed relatively quickly and can help to address our housing demands. Furthermore, we have called for the introduction of emergency planning and procurement powers, the utilisation of modern building technologies on vacant buildings, and to deliver on modular homes. This is key to maintaining and enhancing the primacy of rural areas and their ability to prosper.

When we talk about planning, we must also consider the manner in which roads are laid out. I previously raised the matter of Ardfinnan bridge. In May 2018, An Bord Pleanála, the planning inspector, ruled that a one-way system on the bridge did not comply with the minimum requirements of the design manual for urban roads and streets and would not result in an appropriate level of pedestrian safety on the bridge. Funding was secured to carry out an options assessment report, which concluded that the preferred option include an independent footbridge. However, the National Transport Authority, NTA, has now formally dismissed that report and removed this project from the 2023 programme. This is an example of how community concerns can be dismissed and actions taken that are not in the interest of locals and the preferred layout of a key feature for the community. I call on the Minister for Transport to give attention to this development and engage with the NTA and the people of Ardfinnan and Ardfinnan Community Council.

We all agree with clusters in villages and small towns but the Government must be realistic. No one will go back into small towns and villages unless it puts services in place that will keep the GP, post office, butcher and pub. No young families will move to rural Ireland to these clusters unless those services are there. The Government needs to wake up and make sure those services are provided in those clusters.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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The next slot is for the Labour Party. I call Deputy Ó Ríordáin.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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I thank the Rural Independent Group for tabling this very important motion. At the heart of it are some matters we need to address, of which planning is the most fundamental. Planning controversies have dogged the political system for as long as I can remember. The Labour Party is interested, and we had a long discussion on this at our parliamentary party meeting yesterday, in the log cabin suggestion, which is one that is worthy of investigation.

I will say this much about the planning system in Ireland; I remind Deputies that there was a period in Ireland where developers were able to buy the votes of councillors to rezone land. In my constituency and throughout rural Ireland, there are developments that were built by cowboy builders that are crumbling.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Here we go again.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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We have developments in my constituency that are deathtraps. We had planning regulations and oversight that did not work, which allowed people to make a quick buck and destroyed the lives of those who were living in those dwellings. They bought them in good faith and, when they discovered those dwellings were defective, had no ability to move against the person, persons or entities that sold them the properties. I deal with that every single day. We are also dealing with the legacy issue of developments that were given planning permission with no facilities or community infrastructure whatsoever. We are still living with the legacy of that. When it comes to the planning system, and the imbalance between what the developer wants in order to gain profit for himself or herself, and what is good for sustainable and community living, we have not always got the balance right. I again remind Deputies that we have had any amount of planning, corruption or political tribunals based around planning, poor planning and the overreach of power by vested interests.

When it comes to the suggestion regarding log cabins, while we cannot let perfection be the enemy of what could be a potential solution, we cannot let that be the long-term solution. In my experience, once you begin to change, lessen or lighten regulation around something, there will always be a cowboy somewhere who will try to abuse that. It may be the case that in quite a number of circumstances a log cabin-type structure could be used to facilitate a family member to move out of the larger home, maybe to move in with someone they are in a relationship with and start a family, as a first step. That is laudable and is worth investigating and supporting, if it can be done. We just know, however, a percentage of people will look at that as potential rental income and, before we know it, these log cabins, which we all thought were a good idea for giving people that first step to move outside the family home, will turn out to be used just for rental. Can we be sure about the standard of these cabins? Do we want to be here in five, six or seven years' time in a situation where we did not have proper oversight as to their construction and they turn out to be firetraps? These are the conversations I and other Deputies have all the time because of the failure of oversight, regulation and proper planning laws.

If we do not learn from the past, we are destined to repeat it. Who has not been affected by the robust campaigning of those suffering due to mica and other issues around the west coast? Who has not been affected by listening to those who live in Priory Hall in my constituency? Who has not been affected by listening to those affected by defects in apartment blocks or who are living in developer-led constructions with no facilities and all those things they were told would come along afterwards, including childcare facilities and playgrounds etc., which just did not happen? In that context, it is legitimate when people in the political world ask questions of developers when they put in planning applications to make money. I ask the Minister of State to give this proposal from the Rural Independent Group a fair wind. In fairness to Opposition groups, we attempt to find solutions. What the Labour Party do not and will not stand over is a planning system that will not defend good oversight, good planning law and the kind of robust system we need.

Rural and one-off housing is a controversial subject for many. The Labour Party has proposed for quite a while now that the decision taken by the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government to abolish town councils was wrong. It was a mistake and if you make a mistake in politics, you should own up and try to reverse it. When town councils were abolished throughout the country, that level of civic engagement, or civil leadership or civic vision, which a rural town could have as regards providing a different vision for how that space and rural town would look, was lost. We would have a better vision of rural Ireland and rural towns if we were to reinstate town councils because we could then have that kind of conversation locally, which, unfortunately, has not happened. We thought at the time it was a layer of local government that was unnecessary, which fed into many conversations around getting rid of the Seanad and having fewer Deputies because less politics would be better.

On reflection, and time has passed since then, I think more politics is better, more discussion is better, more leadership is better and more civic engagement is better. The re-establishment of town councils would be part of that. Some of the suggestions are worthy of investigation but we must remember our history. Whenever we loosen or change anything to benefit someone, there will always be someone who will try to exploit it for the wrong reasons. That is why I have made the comments I have made.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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From the point of view of the Social Democrats, it must be an absolute given when building with more sustainable materials that it must always be done while building homes to high-quality standards and meeting building regulations and standards. Strong independent inspection and strong enforcement are needed when it comes to building any home. We have a poor recent history of that, unfortunately. All buildings used to be built with sustainable materials in Dublin city. They were built with wood. The reason we moved to less sustainable materials with respect to carbon was fire risk and fire spread. If we are serious about moving to sustainable materials and the use of timber, and we need to be to meet our climate change targets, it must go hand in hand with strong independent inspection, enforcement and other measures.

I welcome one of the comments the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, made about taking action to address the serious housing and planning issues affecting people who speak our primary language in Gaeltacht areas. People whose primary language is our national language, Irish, are being driven out of Gaeltacht areas. It is important that is done. People whose primary language is our national language, Irish, are being driven out of Gaeltacht areas. They cannot get affordable housing in those areas. That must be addressed. We can all think of Gaeltacht areas where new housing has been built and rather than it being made available to people in the local community and to speakers of Gaeilge, it is being bought up as second and holiday homes and rented out on short-term letting platforms. I have no issue with some short-term lets in tourist areas but failing to regulate that, to have a balance and to protect the ability of local people to access housing at affordable rates in their areas is a massive planning mistake which must be addressed, along with looking at other measures such as language criteria in Gaeltacht areas. That must be worked on urgently.

The Government countermotion states there is no prohibition on the use of timber construction from a planning perspective. Yesterday in the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, we heard from architects with expertise in this area. Claire McManus, who has a huge amount of expertise in this area, specifically stated that the building regulations as they currently stand are prohibitive with respect to the full use of timber in construction. She stated that in most construction using timber frame, the inner leaf is indeed timber frame but it is rare to get the outer construction leaf to be done with timber because of issues with the building regulations. That needs to be addressed.

Fundamentally, if we are going to be able to tackle this properly and if we want to move towards more sustainable development, sustainable building materials and a more sustainable approach to housing and planning in rural communities, the issue of affordability is key and must be addressed. I thank the Rural Independent Group for tabling this motion and I thank Macra na Feirme, which has been campaigning on this and other issues recently. If we are going to tackle the issues around sustainability of housing, affordability is key. We must distinguish between two primary types of housing need being generated in rural communities. We need to distinguish between rural generated housing need and urban generated housing need, that is the spilling out of cities and into towns and rural communities. A lack of affordable housing options in urban areas means some people feel they have no choice but to go to where housing is more affordable for them, which can be a rural community. That can have a negative impact in pushing up house prices in those rural communities and creating issues for people who have a rural housing need. It is important that planning and achieving affordability addresses that. Affordability must be at the heart of good planning. We cannot have good planning and sustainability without affordable housing. It is at the heart of good planning in other countries.

I will address some of the issues in the Rural Independent Group's motion on the planning system. The best thing we could do to improve the planning system, and this came across strongly from a range of different quarters during the pre-legislative scrutiny on the Bill, if we want a better planning system that works for everyone is to hire more planners in An Bord Pleanála and to make planning decisions in local authorities. We must also invest in more planners for forward planning. This is an area we are weak at. Other countries have invested in forward planning and doing master plans to get certainty and have cut out a lot of the risk and speculation. That makes housing more affordable and means the infrastructure is delivered at the same time, which is important.

A case study done by Mark Scott and Liam Heaphy on this matter is relevant. They analysed planning applications in a rural part of Tipperary between 2010 and 2020. Their analysis showed that new growth in the area they studied was almost entirely stimulated by local need with a strong emphasis on family clusters, which is a sustainable way of doing housing in rural communities. They pointed out the huge advantages to this approach as regards kinship-generated dwelling and the family supports that go with that, especially for ageing parents and families with young children. Being near grandparents or aunts and uncles brings family supports. The study also makes the point that the visual impact of new building in rural areas can be successfully mitigated through the retention of natural hedgerows and tree planting rather than ad hocfencing solutions and variable planning regimes. It also makes the relevant point that existing buildings that are vacant in rural communities must be a key part of addressing housing needs in rural areas. It is worth noting that rural regions away from larger towns and cities have experienced continued population decline and exodus in recent decades. This is leading to an ageing rural population and a declining base of services in the community. It is important this be addressed. Ireland has a strong history of a considerable amount of our population living in rural areas and communities. We might be quite different from some other countries in that regard.

If we want to address the issue of urban-generated housing need in rural communities, we need to provide viable options for people with respect to affordability in urban areas and the opportunity for people to self-build in more sustainable and urban settings as that is part of what drives the wish of urban populations for housing in rural areas.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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I will start with where I agree with the Deputies of the Rural Independent Group. I agree with the fact that, despite years of promises and lip service, the Government has consistently failed to tackle the housing crisis effectively, leaving it scrambling to react to a situation that has now spun out of control; and with the fact that Ireland's housing crisis is currently the worst in Europe, with rent prices having increased more than in any other European country. Those facts are unambiguously true. The Government's claim in its countermotion that it is "comprehensively addressing the housing crisis through a suite of actions to accelerate the delivery of new homes whilst also continuing to deliver on the fundamental reforms" is unambiguously untrue.

The question is why? Why do we have such a huge housing crisis affecting people in rural and urban areas? What is the root cause? It is a reliance on the private market to deliver housing and a policy which has seen those at the top, including the big corporate landlords, developers, speculators and the big construction companies, able to profit to a huge extent from this housing crisis.

This is not just a housing crisis that affects everybody in the same way. Is this a terrible natural disaster that we are experiencing? No. For those at the top this is an enormous opportunity and they have seen profits soar. That is the root cause of the housing crisis, whereas the Rural Independent Group motion sees the root cause more as problems with bureaucratic planning, a need to loosen up planning and so on.

It is unfortunate the motion does not really address the real causes of the housing crisis and that it does not do anything to address the extortionate cost of development land or construction, because there is nothing in it that might threaten the huge profits being made by landowners, speculators, developers and landlords. The motion does not address the failure of the Government to invest in providing secure and affordable public housing that is accessible to all. One proposal in the motion suggests the introduction of a new €20,000 grant aid package for anyone who wishes to build a permanent one-off house on their land. There is no stipulation about any sort of means test. Regardless of how wealthy someone is they can benefit from this €20,000 and there is no stipulation that it needs to be for their use. The reality of that proposal would be simply to put more money into the pockets of the wealthy as opposed to addressing the housing crisis. According to the latest wealth survey by the Central Statistics Office, CSO, less than 9% of the population own land. I would say it is significantly higher in this Dáil than in society at large, yet this motion wants to give them all €20,000, including wealthy landowners in the southern region, where the median value of land owned was €433,800 in 2020.

We need the sustainable development of communities, with the State investing to provide affordable homes, be they public homes on a differential rent or genuinely affordable homes. They must have easy-to-access services, be that public transport, waste, water infrastructure, etc. We need proper planning by the State to provide sustainable and liveable communities for people across the country.

I want to address the Government amendment, which is basically a long set of praise for Housing for All and how it is working so wonderfully and all the rest. The problem the Government has is that is not people's experience. People do not have the experience that Housing for All is working if they are some of the 500,000 young people trapped at home, if they are trying to access the rental market, if they are being threatened with eviction by their landlords or if they are trying to buy their first homes when house prices are almost at a record high. All of those people and their relatives and friends know that Housing for All is definitely not working for them, although some of them will realise it is working for the big landlords and the developers who back and support the Government.

The Government says every time that the following is not the case, but the root of Housing for All and the Government response is a reliance on the market. The Government has two ideas to tackle the housing crisis. The first idea is to give money to developers. They can be given the money indirectly through a help-to-buy scheme, which the motion from the Rural Independent Group wants to extend, so the money passes through the hands of private buyers and then into the hands of developers. This artificially pushes up the price of houses for the benefit of developers, a scheme that was originally lobbied for by the Construction Industry Federation. The Government could also give the money directly by cutting development levies and all the rest that was announced in recent weeks, giving €1 billion to developers. That is one idea and the other idea is to reduce planning requirements and the standards of housing to again increase the potential profits. The root cause of the housing crisis, however, is the sell-off of the social housing stock and the failure to add to social housing.

At the base of the entire thing is that we are completely reliant on the market to deliver housing. When we make that point the Government likes to say the State is building more social houses than ever before. There was an interesting article about a week ago by Lorcan Sirr and Mel Reynolds in The Irish Timeswhich very effectively debunked that claim. They made the point that "Numerically, this is indeed the highest social housing output since 1975" but the context of a population of 3.2 million in 1975 and a population of 5.1 million today means "social housing output has actually halved per capita in the intervening period". Even though the figures are supposedly high, with the reality of the housing need of the population, it is nowhere close to what is required. When we dig deeper into it, as the authors of the article do, we see that about 70% of what is termed as social housing is, in reality, turnkey housing that is bought from private developers by councils. They also point to the vast reliance on approved housing bodies, AHBs, as opposed to the capacity of the councils themselves to build homes, making the point that it is the councils that have the land and that they are in the best position to do it, yet there is huge reliance on AHBs, with AHB output up 16 times over the past seven years. The authors go on to make the following point:

The proposal to abolish development and Irish Water levies for housing, at an average saving of €12,650 per housing unit, is unlikely to deliver housing that is any more affordable for purchasers, but it will inflate the value of residential zoned land by at least 20 per cent. This is welcome if you are a landowner, but not so great if you are a body such as an AHB – on whom the State is increasingly reliant – seeking sites on the open market.

The Government has therefore just made social housing delivery more expensive, while at the same time gifting large landowners significant inflation in their assets’ value. It will also be difficult to unwind this bailout in 12 months’ time.

When the Government does the same thing again and again and it benefits a certain class of people, we might think it is not an accident.

Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent)
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Fresh data from the Construction Information Services highlight that the planning backlog is delaying the delivery of about 65,000 new residential units due to being tied up within the planning appeals, judicial review, and strategic housing development processes. To put that in context, that is two years' worth of homes being delayed. In my constituency of Louth and in Meath East, I receive calls weekly regarding planning permission rejections. From 2021, Louth County Council’s planning permission requirements in rural areas, in comparison with the rest of the country, are strict and restrictive, especially in relation to local needs requirements. While the population and housing in County Louth will grow by about 20%, the statistics in the Louth county development plan state that housing in rural areas will only be permitted to grow by 9.4% from 2021 to 2027, greatly impacting rural communities.

Earlier this year Irish architects claimed that a new model of housing density could more than double the number of own-door dwellings on a site. The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland wrote to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, calling for low-rise medium-density housing along the lines of models employed in Sweden, Finland, Australia and New Zealand. The housing market centres on high-rise, high-cost and build-to-rent schemes. That can be changed by ministerial directive by consulting on new guidelines for housing design to meet the need for more diverse and smaller households and, in doing so, we can unlock the potential to deliver twice as many homes on the same locations.

I have previously proposed the use of modular homes as an alternative and innovative housing design to support greater flexibility, to allow for more compact and sustainable forms of development and to provide greater housing choice. The proposed motion is calling for a review of the rural design guide, which will include design guidance on modular homes, with specific reference to log cabins. A clear planning policy on building log cabins could go a long way to addressing the housing crisis. County councils generally only grant permission for such homes to be constructed on the edge of forests. At present, in the midst of a housing crisis, hardworking individuals who are taking the initiative to build low footprint and sustainable log cabins on their land are being met with unreasonable obstacles and unfair uphill battles with local authorities to obtain planning permission. The council should define a clear planning policy with respect to the construction of log cabins in rural areas.

Log cabins can be used as people’s primary residence at a time of housing shortages, rent pressures and pending evictions. They are a relevant solution, particularly considering rising construction costs. They can be constructed quickly and efficiently from €60,000 to €80,000, are eco-friendly, and are relatively cheap to heat. Young couples who cannot afford concrete homes are increasingly seeking this cheaper option to get a foot on the property ladder. To take full advantage of these benefits, easing planning restrictions could help make log cabin construction more accessible and affordable for those interested in this type of housing.

I have been contacted by a number of constituents who had planning applications for log cabins refused. These applicants live in rural areas but not next to forests. As a result of the refusals, the council itself will soon have to house them.

Overall, Irish planning laws are outdated and almost impossible to navigate when it comes to obtaining planning permission for log cabins, leaving individuals facing insurmountable obstacles. Despite some progress being made on housing supply, we believe the Government should be open to new thinking and new initiatives which will help to address the current chronic housing shortage. The provision of log cabins is a response to the housing crisis and should be supported, not inhibited, by planning regulations. It is absurd that the current overly burdensome restrictions on log cabins in rural areas are still in place when the country faces a growing homelessness crisis and needs up to 62,000 homes built per year until 2050 to meet demand. Failure to intervene and to support the provision of log cabins will mean that many more people will go into homelessness.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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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.

Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this motion on planning and rural housing. There is no doubt that this is an extremely important issue, particularly for those of us living in rural Ireland, and there is no doubt that the Government has failed spectacularly in addressing the current housing crisis. Recent EUROSTAT figures say it all. Ireland is the most expensive country in the EU, along with Denmark, and the cost of housing here is 88% higher than the EU average. That is an absolute disgrace, yet the Government's response has not only been wholly inadequate but has actually exacerbated the problem. Schemes like help-to-buy, a scheme accessible only to those who already have a significant wage, only drive up costs even further and price many out of ever buying or building their own home.

Our current planning system plays a role in contributing to the housing crisis, and I agree with the motion's statement that the planning system in Ireland is "dysfunctional, outdated, and not fit for purpose". It is, however, not the fault only of An Bord Pleanála that that is the case. It is especially the case in rural Ireland, where planning has become increasingly difficult to achieve. I believe we need to significantly increase development of our rural towns, and not just our bigger towns but our smaller villages too. If we are serious about repopulating our rural areas, this type of development needs to be prioritised. It is not enough to develop areas such as Donegal town and Glenties, although development there is critically needed too. We need to look at further developing villages such as Teelin, Carrick and Glencolumbkille. We need proper policy that prioritises the development of rural areas, and I support the call for that in the motion. We need to strike a balance when it comes to planning. We also need to look beyond the taxation system and actually stimulate that growth in rural towns and villages. We need the councils and local authorities to take a more active role to make that development happen.

I also support the motion's call to allow sustainable log cabins to be constructed. Log cabins are energy-efficient, durable and a suitable housing alternative for parts of rural Ireland. These are the types of alternative solutions the Government needs to consider, instead of relying on private developers. Private developers will not fix the housing crisis. They played a large part in creating it.

The overreliance on the private sector has brought us here in the first place and it certainly will not bring us back out. By the looks of it, neither will this Government. The amendment it has tabled is laughable. It is the same old spin and bluster. One line refers to "funding streams for rural development" and mentions the local improvement scheme. My office has been dealing with dozens of stagnant local improvement scheme applications, including some that have not progressed in ten years. It is clear that current funding streams are not sufficient and not helping rural communities in any effective way. It is time for the Government to publish the long-awaited rural guidelines and to invest properly in rural Ireland, with Government investment rather than tax breaks.

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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I thank the rural Independents for bringing forward this very important motion. I also thank my friends in the Independent Group for affording me the time to speak on it. I have spoken in this House on many occasions about the housing crisis, which has affected my constituents in Clare. It is a crisis that affects not just the nearly 3,000 families on the housing list in Clare but also those who have been saving up to build or buy their first or forever home and get their foot on the property ladder. Availability of properties in rural Ireland is far scarcer and much more difficult than elsewhere. Those who wish to build would find it easier to get planning for 20 houses than one in rural Ireland, for example, and that is thanks to this Government.

I stand in support of Clare County Council, which is being pushed back on our county development plan by the Minister, which is absolutely wrong. The average house price in Clare is now just under €235,000, an increase of over 2% on last year. On Daft yesterday, for example, I saw a one-bedroomed apartment going for upwards of €125,000 in an employment blackspot in west Clare with a deficit of local services. No local could afford that, and it will become either a holiday home or an Airbnb.

In times of crisis innovative solutions are required. I welcome this motion and suggest that log cabin building be ramped up. Instead of the apartment I have just mentioned, a young couple starting out and saving could purchase a log cabin for just under €25,000, have it insulated and installed on site, on their land, with a concrete base for a total of just €47,740.

I wish to mention the extension to the help-to-buy scheme.

I raised this with the Minister, in particular because of rural communities not seeing developments and new builds in the past decade. The scheme will open up that opportunity for them, which I welcome. I do not know if log cabins are the future or whether they are the solution to this crisis, but I believe they are part of it.

Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
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I wish to highlight a very worrying trend in planning decisions, especially those made by An Bord Pleanála. Obviously, most county development plans include a rural need if a person is farming a particular area. I recently came across the case of a young couple. The man was transferred a farm from a member of the family and he and his spouse sought to develop a house on it. They were told that because of the size of the farm, it was not economically viable to do so. It is a 40-acre farm. It is not the best land in County Clare, however. It certainly would not compare with some of the land in County Limerick. That said, my constituents have the same right to farm 20, 30 or 40 acres of land in this Republic as Deputy Pringle's and the Minister of State's constituents. It is an absolute disgrace that some pencil pusher in the planning department of Clare County Council or of any other county council in this Republic or, indeed, in An Bord Pleanála - one of the most defunct organisations the history of the State - can make these decisions. The only response the head of An Bord Pleanála had in respect of the complete dysfunction that is going on within the organisation was to blame lawyers who are taking cases. Lawyers take cases because the decisions are crap and because, week in and week out, An Bord Pleanála cannot stand over those decisions.

I do not wish to go back over that matter. I want to talk about these pencil pushers who determine that farms that brought up families all over this State, from which representatives in this House came and were proud to come, are being told their farms are not big enough to build houses on. If this continues for much longer, there will be an uprising because rural people have had it. To try to farm marginal land is difficult enough; for people to be told by some pencil pusher with a quasi-degree in something that they have to live in the nearest big town because the farm is not big enough to live on, where they can get up in the middle of the night to calve cows, help ewes to lamb or engage in whatever type of farming they wish to engage in, is a disgrace. It is just not good enough. Are the Minister of State and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government, many of whose members come from small farms across the length and breadth of this country, going to stand over that rubbish?

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I thank the members of the Rural Independent Group for bringing forward this motion. It is very well-intentioned, but we will be opposing it because it fails to recognise the progress being undertaken to encourage growth and development in rural Ireland in a way consistent with our national planning policies and the substantial public investment underpinning them. I assure Deputies that the Government's plan is working, and we are committed to achieving success to benefit rural areas across the country.

I will deal with the points that were raised. My colleague, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Government support the continued supply of housing in rural areas. If we look at the statistics from the CSO, we can see that the number of rural houses that were completed has increased since 2020. The number last year was 5,552. It was 4,736 in 2021, which is an increase of 786. We support that continued supply. We are in the process of completing updated rural housing planning guidelines.We want to ensure they are consistent with current requirements in legislation at national and EU level in the context of matters relating to rural housing, such as environmental protection, the Gaeltacht and climate action. We are looking for the guidelines to continue to provide for new housing in rural areas and support the development of rural communities.

I will touch on a number of points that were raised, one of which was with regard to log cabins. There is nothing in the national policy that dictates the type of materials that can be used in housing. This matter has come up repeatedly. There is no prohibition on the use of timber construction from a planning perspective. The overall planning permission proposal system is saturated with regard to national, regional and local planning policy.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan referred to having an expert in timber leaf. I have no doubt that Deputy O'Donoghue will probably know much more about that from a technical point of view, but it is something we will look at in order to ascertain the position.

The other issue on which I want to provide an update on behalf of the Minister is the Croí Cónaithe scheme. We expect to issue a revised circular later today which states that the grant of €30,000 will now go to €50,000 if a property is vacant for more than two years. That will rise to €70,000 if the property is derelict and was built pre 2007. That applies in rural areas. There is no location in Ireland to which it does not apply. That is extremely important.

I also take on board the points made by Deputy Paul Murphy, although he has not remained in the Chamber. We fundamentally disagree with Deputy Murphy. He is ideologically driven. His suggestions are not based on the practicalities of building houses. The State cannot do everything and, effectively, he has basically come up with suggestions. He is like the dog who wants to chase every car that goes by. The bottom line is that we have to work in a balanced way to get houses built. The State needs to build houses, which we have done. We built more than 10,000 last year. The private sector needs to build and the AHBs need to be involved. If Members ask people whether they are concerned about who actually builds social houses, the answer will be that they are not; they want the houses. We need to get houses built quickly. Deputy Paul Murphy is ideologically driven. Effectively, the State should do everything and the private sector should not have a role. We have brought in the measures. The development levies have been suspended for a year and it is the same with water charges. They apply to once-off rural houses as well. That should bring down the cost, which is hugely important.

I will take up a couple of points made by Deputy Canney about the legacy estates and water schemes and treatment plants. Maybe he will come back to us on that. The Minister is looking at applications from the various local authorities on wastewater treatment plants for systems for individual villages. He is giving that priority at the moment.

Deputy McNamara made reference to An Bord Pleanála. I cannot comment on individual cases. We are bringing in through the planning Bill defined timelines in terms of decisions to be made by An Bord Pleanála. From my perspective, we want people to be able to build once-off rural houses. We want them to be able to be part of the fabric of rural Ireland. It is hugely important that we continue to get the balance correct. The national planning framework objectives, together with the previous 2005 guidelines, will enable planning authorities which are in situto continue to prepare and adopt development plan policies for once-off authorities houses in rural areas. Last year, more than 5,500 once-off rural houses were completed. That is an increase of 16% on last year. The Government is also providing significant investment in rural Ireland including 215 projects worth a total of €542 million under the rural regeneration and development fund and more than €149 million through the town and village renewal scheme since 2016. These investment programmes and others align with Our Rural Future and are transforming rural communities with new infrastructure and public amenities for our citizens.

I will make reference to one issue. People with a rural house qualify for the help-to-buy scheme if it is their first home.

That is hugely important. In many cases, it means a deposit for young people. We want to see people living in rural Ireland but we want it to happen in a sustainable way. We want to see the local authorities involved in building houses. In addition, we want the Croí Cónaithe scheme to be taken up in abundance. Young people or the children of farmers can purchase derelict houses and apply under the Croí Cónaithe scheme to bring them back to life. In many cases, people are buying older houses to enhance them for planning purposes. Some €20,000 is available if a building has been vacant for more than two years and €50,000 is available if a building is derelict. The house needs only to have been built before 2007. We want to see those properties being brought back for rental purposes as well. That must be looked at in abundance.

I will pick up on a point made by Deputy Ó Ríordáin. Most counsellors, public representatives and builders are doing their jobs in what they believe to be the best possible fashion. There are cowboys in every profession-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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And Indians.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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-----but I would hate for it to be put out that counsellors in respect of zoning decisions and politicians here in the Dáil and Seanad are not doing their jobs in the proper way. We are bringing in the residential zoned land tax, the legislation for which is in, and the land sharing tax. We are conscious of the impact the residential zoned land tax is having on active farmers. We want to ensure that active farmers can continue. The Taoiseach is on record saying that any active farmers who have difficulties arising have the opportunity to put forward the case for the de-zoning of their land. We want to keep active farmers farming. That is very much in keeping with our theme around rural Ireland.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan made reference to the requirement for proper oversight, and he is absolutely right. We have put activation measures in place. Development levies and water charges have been suspended. The local authority housing scheme is in place. Those measures are all to ensure that private builders can build houses at a rate that make them affordable to purchase.

I commend our amendment to the motion to the House. I understand the good intentions of the Rural Independent Group but we will not be accepting the motion. We feel we have made significant progress that has not been acknowledged in the motion and have proposed our amendment to it.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I thank former Senator Briain Ó Domhnaill and Ms Mairéad McGrath in my office team for putting this motion together. We are disappointed with the Government but we are not surprised. Before I get into the substance of the motion, I have a couple questions and points of clarification for the Minister of State. He might answer these points. He mentioned the grant for first-time buyers in his address. That grant is only available for new houses. It does not apply to second-hand houses. It must be a new house.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Is the Deputy talking about the help-to-buy scheme?

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I am.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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That is the case.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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That was not what I understood from the Minister of State. Deputy O'Donoghue asked me to ask the Minister of State about log cabins with a timber finish in his county of Limerick. Under the Limerick area plan, such timber-finished properties are not allowed. Buildings must be finished with mortar, plaster, slate or something else.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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That is something at which we will look.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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We are looking at everything. The Minister has fled the Chamber. It is most disappointing from our point of view as a small group, grúpa beag, that the Minister never waits to reply. I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State but Deputy Darragh O'Brien is the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. He makes announcement after announcement. I attended the annual general meeting of the Irish Council for Social Housing last week in a hotel near Heuston Station. Did the Minister attend? He did not. He was on Zoom. That group and 350 affiliated bodies contribute enormously, build houses and do an amount of work for the Government. It does that work where county councils and others cannot. The Minister fled this debate like snow off a ditch. At the end of his contribution, he clarified to Deputy Michael Healy-Rae that an instruction will be sent to local authorities today, which they will receive tomorrow. I do not remember the exact phrase he used but the Minister of State said something to the effect that he is endeavouring to send that circular. Why make a big announcement in a blaze of glory without any consultation? The councils are telling everyone they do not know what is expected because they have not received a circular or any information.

It was reported last week that 74 housing projects have stalled because they ran out of money as a result of overruns on cost. A person who was blind and deaf would know that costs have gone up enormously. That should have been anticipated. People involved in those projects now have to wait several months for a reply from the Department to get extra funds. The Department is clogging up the whole system, along with the planning regulator and the Land Development Agency, LDA. There are many agencies now that were never in place when I was a member of the county council. They were never there but we managed to build houses without all the red tape. I will not say it, but the word I would use to describe the situation starts with "b" and finishes with "t". There is paper up and down the country.

The Minister of State also said there are 830 villages, hamlets and some quite big towns with no sewage treatment plants. Shame on the Government. It is persecuting farmers and householders with septic tanks. Former Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, "Big Phil" Hogan introduced a septic tank charge when the dirty polluters were the local authorities themselves. That was the case in Bray and cities in Dublin and everywhere else. The Government is the same now. It has been found out. It is trying to demonise farmers and rural people for CO2 pollution. The Government has found out who the polluters are. It was on the front page of the newspapers last week and we all know who they are. The big people will not be touched. Big is wonderful with the Government. That is all it wants.

The proof of how interested the Government is in our motion is that one backbencher arrived to sit behind the Minister of State for three minutes but nobody else from any of the Government parties, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Green Party, or the Independents who regularly support the Government, came into the House. That tells it all. Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmad? Where are the Members? They are too ashamed to come into the House because they know the Government's policy is an abject failure. They know it is all bluster, bluff, baloney, reports and investigations. I spent five years as a member of the housing committee and honest to God, I could not wait to get off it. If reports, investigations, documents and bringing witnesses before the committee could build houses, we would have a surplus of houses in this country. Everyone would have a house to themselves. That is how it would be. What is happening is not realpolitik.

I must also address my learned friends on the left, who like to lecture us all. I refer especially to Deputy Paul Murphy and his crew. Everyone who employs someone or has a development company is a bad person, a con man or a robber. That is an awful attitude. Someone needs to rehabilitate the Deputy so he understands what builders are and what they do. We cannot have houses without builders. Members of the Labour Party, which abolished town councils, are wringing their fingers that some cowboy builders are going to take advantage of what we are doing. We live in the real world. Our motion is an honest effort to try to get people in rural areas to solve part of the housing crisis. We are trying not to be negative all the time. We are putting forward a positive proposal.

I know at least ten people in south Tipperary who have built log cabins, in one shape or another. One poor man is in a situation of separation as the result of a marriage break-up. The house had to be sold. He bought a site and put a mobile home onto it. He built the most spectacular log finish all around it. He has now received an enforcement notice and will be dragged through the courts. He asked me where he will go. Will he live under the Main Guard in Clonmel with the other homeless people? I know of several other cases.

I know of a young barber who bought a log cabin in County Wicklow and put it behind his father and mother's house. It was delicately and sensitively placed. It fit the landscape. He has been leaving through the same entrance all his life but now the TII has a problem with the entrance. He is nevertheless leaving through that entrance every day. He has his own sewerage system. We are looking for problems.

The TII and the National Roads Authority, NRA, are the issue. We decommissioned the IRA but we cannot decommission the NRA. We cannot get rid of the NRA. We added the TII on top of the NRA. Many of the people involved are good people but the power they have is simply astounding. They issue diktats to councils. They will not build roads or do this or that.

It is like the man one time who was dating two different women in my parish. They are all dead now, so I can say it. He went to the stage in Ballmacarbry this night-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Are you talking about yourself?

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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No, I am not. It was fadó fadó. One of them was Cathy and one was Kitty. They are all gone to their eternal reward. None of them turned up that night so he said: "I have neither kitty nor a cat tonight. I have nobody but myself." The TII wants everything. It will not build the roads. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is welcome. I will talk to Mary Lou. She will know some of the folklore from Tipperary, her mother being from there as well. The TII will not build the roads. It sterilised a 5 km wide area of it, and you cannot build a hen house. You could hardly put up a flag on the day of a match, but we cannot even go to see a match now, or see it on television with the corporate engagement we have. It is shocking what the Government is presiding over here. It is a move away from the rural people. Deputy O'Donoghue reminded us of an old woman living beside De Valera's house in Bruree, and all the old people we represent. They lived in hovels that they built. They reared big families of ten, 12 and 14 with no bathrooms. Now they have four bathrooms in big houses and no children. If the Government got its way, there would be no people in rural Ireland. We want to say proudly that we are supporting people living in rural Ireland. We are not for breaking any laws. We want sensible moratoria to be given to people for log cabins. They are all quality buildings that are sustainable and environmentally friendly. The Minister should give us a chance in terms of the moratorium.

I can remember when the Government closed all the bedsits in Dublin. It was not this Government, it was a different one. It was an act of lunacy, because thousands of people who had roofs over their heads did not have them the night after, all due to the bad work of this legislation. It is the same people on the left who were clamouring that these were not suitable. They were covering people, and they had roofs over their heads. We have all the legislation and the pious platitudes. The objections to all the houses by certain people in here are sickening. They do not want the Kitty nor the Cathy. They do not want anything anywhere because they do not understand the value of work. They do not understand what a shovel is. They do not know what a foundation is. They do not know what mica is. They do not know what a block is. They do not know what a roof tile is, and they do not care either, but we care. Just because some of us might be involved in construction we get demonised as cowboys and as having self-interest. Our interest is to house our people - a noble gesture that Liam Lynch died for 100 years ago – and Michael Collins, Pádraig Pearse and all our forefathers – the right to self-determination, a home and to live and to eke out a living on our land and small farm. As Deputy McNamara said, 40 acres of land is not viable any more. It is to hell or to Dublin now - not to Connacht - in here with all the problems that we have.

To top it all, we decided to open the borders and bring in a further 200,000 or 250,000 people. My goodness; the men in the white coats would have come here long ago if things had not changed. The Government closed all the mental institutions. They would have a lot of us gone out of this place and put somewhere that we would be taught to think of the unanticipated consequences of legislation that is passed here, clamoured for, and the folly of it all.

Let the people of rural Ireland who are able to do so build their houses. They are not asking the State for anything, only for a document, as Deputy Michael Healy-Rae said, to give them planning. I am not talking about reckless planning. Give them a moratorium. Allow them to house themselves. Allow them contribute to their schools, GAA clubs, soccer clubs, churches, mass meetings or whatever of political parties. The Government will not have many supporters because they will have nowhere to live and they will not be home when people come to canvass. Those who will be at home will be waiting in the long grass, when it grows, and they will be waiting for the Government and the peann luaidhe will be sharp and uimhir a náid will be put down after their names.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The time is up.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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Why would it not, because the Government had nought and zero interest in them?

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank the Deputy. His time is up.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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The members of the Government are elected representatives, but they are more interested in representing global politics now, not the people of rural Ireland.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The time is up.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I commend the motion, which I will push to a vote.

Deputies:

Hear, hear.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I suspect Deputy Mattie McGrath is making a bit of Tipperary folklore every day.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Absolutely.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Kitty and Cathy.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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That concludes our consideration of the motion regarding planning and rural housing. We must first consider the amendment in the name of the Minister.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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In accordance with Standing Order 80(2), the vote is deferred until the weekly division time this evening.