Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise to Senator Dolan; I had not realised she had been in the Chamber earlier and had gone out. It was not in any way intentional.

I support the comments by Senators Chambers and Dolan on the need for real infrastructural development particularly in the west and midlands. As both said, we are a long way behind and need to move forward. We certainly do not want the west and midlands to be a wilderness. We need to properly develop all the wonderful tourism attractions we have, including the walking routes, the cycling routes, the beautiful lakes and rivers. As the Minister of State knows, we have a significant heritage. I compliment him because I know he regularly travels down the country. I often see him taking photographs of old shop fronts and old pub fronts, which is great to see. Heritage is very important to people. In order to keep all that going and develop that, we need plenty of people living in the locality.

There was mention of Scramogue, where I live. It poses the question as to how far we can really plan ahead certainly for housing. Going back to 2010, 2011 or 2012 when those housing estates were closed up, the cry was to knock them down. Even in the small village of Scramogue, which has 80 or 90 houses in two developments, people wanted them knocked down. In other parts of Roscommon and in all parts of Ireland people wanted them knocked down. Japanese knotweed was growing up on the sites and hundreds of millions of euro were spent to treat the Japanese knotweed. However, today every one of those houses is now occupied. We can talk about Scramogue, Roscommon, Longford, Westmeath, Galway and Kilkenny I presume. How much can be written in stone when it comes to planning? We have seen what has happened with the population explosion in our country in recent years. It was not possible to be ready for that and we have a housing crisis now.

I am making that point regarding how we develop strategies. In that regard, it is really important to have local input from local politicians and local developers. I accept we need the national controls. Nobody does not want national controls, but it must work in tandem with people in different parts of the country to ensure that people get fair play.

The vacant house grant in rural areas has been very positive. It is highly successful and it is good to see it happening. It is a wonderful idea. I know that several hundred houses in Roscommon are being redeveloped, mainly for young couples and people coming back.

I go back to the point Senator Boyhan made ,that in many families, one or two members want to live close to their ageing parents to be able to look after them. I believe Senator Chambers may have made the same point. They just want to be there to look after them. That is also taking a burden off the State if such people can be looked after. We are all talking about people living in their own homes. The vacant home grants for rural houses is very good, as is the vacancy grant for rural villages and towns. Presently there are a lot of roadblocks in the planning system, and it is very frustrating for people because of delays. Sometimes planning people will say the delays are due to lack of staff and they simply cannot handle all they have to handle. It is frustrating for a lot of people. I go back to the point about An Bord Pleanála, and even though the Government has given the board quite a few extra staff, we still have the backlog of 20,000. There are a lot of people who are totally frustrated because they have been waiting a long time for decisions. I am sure the Minister of State is well aware of this.

I commend Senator Flynn on her very passionate views on Traveller accommodation. I agree we have a long way to go on this matter. I am dealing with a very decent genuine Traveller family in Ballinasloe in County Galway at the moment. Many people, including me, worked very hard with Galway County Council to get housing for those people. One of the roadblocks all along was that when the council was more or less agreeing on a house, Tusla said the house was not suitable because it was not big enough, although it was big enough to cater for the family. That type of roadblock has to be taken into account as well. It is not all the fault of planners and councillors. There are other bodies, who may say they are doing their job but who are actually frustrating people getting housing. Sadly, that family I referred to lived in terrible conditions, with eight people in a very small caravan. I visited it and it was shocking and really upset me. They were then allocated a house in an area that was not suitable at all. It is an issue we need to tackle and to look at seriously to get it right because everybody is entitled to a roof over their heads and I think everybody would agree with that.

Those are a few observations. Of course I will be supporting the Government on all these amendments, but there is some very good material coming from some people in the Opposition and I am sure the Minister of State would agree with this. I acknowledge that and I acknowledge there are some difficulties. As Senator Dolan said, we are a long way behind in some parts of the country and we need to develop that infrastructure.