Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. As the Senator may be aware, updated rural housing guidance are currently being prepared by my Department. He speaks very well about the challenges but there are fantastic opportunities out there now. The updated guidelines once issued will expand on the high-level spatial planning policy of the national planning framework, NPF, and in particular on the national policy objective 19 which relates to rural housing. This objective makes a clear policy distinction between rural areas under urban influence on one hand, which we want to discourage, such as all areas under community catchment of cities, towns, centres of employment and structurally weaker rural areas where population levels may be low or in some cases declining. This policy objective is also aligned with the established approach whereby considerations of social or economic need are to be applied by planning authorities in rural areas under urban influence. The new guidelines will replace the current rural housing guidelines which date from 2005, and enable county development plans to continue to provide for housing in the countryside based on the considerations detailed in the NPF while balancing this with the need to manage development in certain areas, such as areas around cities and larger towns and environmentally sensitive areas, in order to avoid overdevelopment or ribbon development which is leading to negative commuter patterns and undue pressure on services for local authorities. Due care is being taken to ensure the updated guidelines will not conflict with fundamental EU freedoms, comply with EU environmental legislative requirements and have due regard to decisions of the European Court of Justice. Having regard to these complex considerations the guidelines are subject to legal review and ministerial approval, following which it is intended that they will be published for a period of public consultation.

Both current and future planning guidelines will continue to allow existing county development plans to provide for rural housing. In the meantime however, the NPF objectives together with the 2005 guidelines, enable planning authorities to prepare and adopt local development plan policies for one-off housing in rural areas. The draft sustainable and compact settlement guidelines published in August 2023 include policy in relation to the planning and development of settlements. The draft guidelines state that rural towns and villages should be grown at a rate that is appropriate to the service and employment function of the settlement and based on the capacity of the infrastructure. The Senator mentioned wastewater infrastructure and I will get to that shortly. The guidelines also note that the planning authorities should promote and support housing that offers an alternative to persons who might otherwise look to construct a house in the surrounding countryside.

Historically there has been a strong tradition of rural housing construction in Ireland, with approximately one-quarter of all delivery nationally for the past 30 years falling within this category. That is significant. Rural housing continues to be an important component of new housing delivery with an average of 4,000 to 5,000 new rural dwellings being built annually. CSO data on new dwelling completions for 2022 show that of the 29,851 new dwellings completed, 4,743 or 16% were single, one-off dwellings in rural areas. In April this year the Government approved additional measures under the Housing for All action plan to incentivise the activation of increased housing supply and to help to reduce housing construction costs. These included the introduction of temporary time-limited arrangements for the waiving of local authority section 48 development contributions and the refunding of Uisce Éireann water and wastewater connection charges. These new measures are intended to help boost the delivery of housing supply, including in rural areas by addressing cost and viability issues, with a view to ensuring that the housing delivery targets set in Housing for All can be met. In addition, the Department of Housing Local Government and Heritage’s multi-annual rural water programme is delivering improvements to water services, including wastewater, in areas of rural Ireland where Uisce Éireann water services were not available. The programme provides capital funding aimed at improving the quality, reliability and efficiency of rural water services infrastructure. I can confirm that the framework for the new multi-annual rural water programme 2024 to 2026 will be published in the coming weeks. I will come back in a moment in regard to Croí Cónaithe.