Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A chara, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur romhat go dtí an Teach seo ar maidin. I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for taking time out of his busy schedule to make it here.

The Covid-19 pandemic is changing the way we look at how we live and how we work. Remote working has become commonplace out of necessity. The future of working is now seen in a different context with regard to location. Rural Ireland is seeing the arrival of new families, which is great to see, who are seeking a better quality of life while working for major, global companies. I am reminded of the advertisement on television with a guy sitting in a house on Arranmore Island while conducting business all over the world. This is great to see.

This can be a win-win for rural Ireland - for our services, schools, sports clubs, whether GAA or soccer clubs, and local shops. Rural Ireland has the potential to be rejuvenated with new people arriving because it is the people who are the heartbeat of any community.

Where are these people going to find a home to live in or a site to build their house on? The current position seems to be that the funding required for necessary infrastructural development to allow building to take place, whether sewerage, water or roads, is directed, understandably so in one context, to large cities and towns. Throughout the country, it seems to be targeted in one or two major towns within a county at the expense of smaller towns and villages. It is stymieing development and the choices people have about where to live.

Trying to obtain planning permission to live in rural Ireland, even for those families born and bred there, is becoming increasingly difficult. I am sure the Minister will be aware of that as he comes from a rural county himself. This issue is being debated throughout the length and breadth of local authorities through their development plans. The concept of local needs only planning continues to be problematic for rural Ireland.

This brings me the Flemish decree, which dates back to 2009 in Belgium. It then made its way to the European Court of Justice in 2013 where the court made its deliberation and stated that the local needs rule with regard to planning was neither fair nor just in the eyes of the EU. The Department has been sitting on that judgment since 2013, which was almost eight years ago. It is past time that guidance was given to local authorities on this issue so they can adopt their development plans to take into consideration this new world based on that European Court of Justice judgment.

Rural Ireland, as I said, needs people if it is going to have a future. Incentives, not barriers, are needed for those who wish to live in rural Ireland.