Mary Henry (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I have read both the guidelines and the Minister's speech with interest. I do not believe they will make a great deal of difference as most applications for planning permission are granted anyway. I am somewhat bemused as to how this will address the problem of rural depopulation. I had understood that the main reason people were not living at every crossroads, as was the case when I was a child, was that there was a lack of jobs in the countryside. Now that fewer people are employed in agriculture and as many people cannot find jobs in the nearest town, they have to seek jobs further away.

If they feel it is appropriate, farmers should be allowed to let all their children build houses on their land. Such children with their spouses and their own children will all need to commute some distance to work and school. I have no obsession with cars except that it is better to walk and get some exercise.

However, there is no public transport in rural Ireland. This document makes no mention of the cost of supplying services to all these people. I presume they will need to be paid for by the rest of us taxpayers. Waste services need to be provided. While I know they will pay electricity and water services, will school busses need to go to more remote places simply because a person, who had some connection with the area, can now build there? There is a real difficulty with older people living in isolated places. What thought has been given to providing services for them?

I am particularly concerned about transport, which is very difficult for those in rural Ireland already. I see nothing in the guidelines indicating that this will improve. I presume the people will be allowed sell the houses, which could result in them becoming holiday houses that are only occupied for a small proportion of the year. I have great doubts about the vibrant, thriving crossroads we will get with such development. However, as I have said, I do not believe it will make much difference.

Apart from the cost of the services, for which we will all have to pay, I am deeply concerned about water pollution. Since I was first elected to this House, I have heard about improvements to address water pollution. I am sure the Minister of State reads the Environmental Protection Agency's reports with even more vigour than I do. Some 45% of private water schemes are polluted with faeces coming from septic tanks that are not maintained. In some areas where there is limestone with little topsoil for drainage the problem is serious and one person's septic tank is leaking into the next person's water supply.

In his speech the Minister piously stated: "Where sites are to be developed, wastewater systems must be designed, installed and monitored to ensure that they operate and continue to operate to the required standards." However, as this is not happening at present, why is it likely to happen in the future? Septic tanks are frequently never cleared out. While I had heard the Minister was to introduce regulations requiring them to be cleared by a registered professional capable of doing so, this has not happened. If we will not enforce existing regulations, there is no point believing this will happen. This problem causes serious illness. The major problem we have regarding rural housing and water supply is being completely disregarded. It is clear from the Minister's speech that the same old practices will continue.

I doubt that these guidelines will make much difference given that most houses already get planning permission. If a farmer has six children, I presume all of them would be entitled to build houses. It would be regrettable if most of them ended up being sold as holiday homes, which would result in empty houses for most of the year as happens in parts of Ireland already, which is pretty depressing.

I shall finish on a cheerful note. There is much discussion about a bungalow blitz. I believe this is because for a while we built houses resembling Spanish haciendas. They were so un-Irish looking that it made people pretty depressed. While some people may not think it attractive, we have managed to develop a style of our own. However, some houses are being built which are much better. I applaud that we have reverted to painting our houses brightly, a sight we used to see in our youth. Clonakilty and all around it is a joy to behold. In many other places new houses have individual character without being a copy of something the owner saw while on holidays in Santa Ponsa or Marbella. I applaud those planners who have shown such initiatives.

I regret we have no data on the cost of these developments. I wish someone in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government would take the pollution of the water supply more seriously.