Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Recently I had cause to drive to the west and to the very south point of the country in the same week. By the time my journey was over, I was really depressed by the decline in the villages and rural areas. I do not have to go to such far flung places as I can see it in my own county where the villages are passed by and closed down. The shop fronts remain but the shops are closed. This has not happened by chance. In the past 20 years several Governments have orchestrated an oppressive national planning framework and spatial strategies and foisted them on people. This was supposed to save rural areas but it is killing rural areas, which have been decimated. In the past ten years some 17% of the houses built in the country have been one-off houses. Large scale development is non-existent.

I call on the Minister to liaise with county managers and ask them to interpret the county development plans to assist and help those applying for permission for a one-off house. Many county managers stand behind their county development plans to deter planning permission. This should not be the case nowadays where people cannot start a home. If one is living in Dublin, Galway or Cork or a metropolitan area one could hope to buy a house but if one is living in Mullingar, Athlone, Ballina or Letterkenny where it is not viable for developers to build a house, houses are not being built. The only tool that people have is when the county manager loosens up the planning regulations to help people and allow one-off planning permission. Local authorities should be trying to assist people who apply for planning permission and give them a chance to move on. This would allow them to start a family and give them hope.