Victor Boyhan (Independent)

First, I would like to be associated with the good wishes to Paschal Donohoe. He has been an exemplary Minister. He has led our finances in a very prudent way. I find him to be a very decent, supportive and encouraging politician. He was always a politician one could approach and he always followed up personally on correspondence or representations to him. I want to put that on the record. I could not say that about everybody but I can definitely say it about Paschal Donohoe and his interest. I mention his attention to detail in this House. As any of us who dealt with him in here through the many years will know, he always took copious notes, followed up, gave a commitment if he could not give an answer then and, within 24 hours, one would have a letter back from him. He was an exceptional politician and Minister and I want to be associated with good wishes. I wish him and his family well as he heads out to the US.

I did so the other day but I want to call for a debate on Delivering Homes, Building Communities. It makes sense to have the two linked together. We cannot have community if we do not have homes and we cannot have homes if we do not have communities so the link is good but we need to drill down into it. I do not want to criticise this national plan for housing and building communities but we need to drill down to the core elements of it and the best way we can do that is in a constructive debate in these Houses. Therefore I ask the Leader to allow ample time for that.

I want to reiterate my concern about rural housing. I have gone through every page of the plan and there is no light shone on rural housing. For rural TDs, Senators and councillors this has to be a major concern. I have received a lot of correspondence about it. All we are told is that some time in the future we will have a national planning statement. There is nothing more than that, just a national planning statement, despite five Ministers writing to me months and months in for the past ten years, telling us that there are draft rural housing guidelines in play and they do not exist. I ask that we have a debate on that.

Finally, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was here last week when we discussed the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill.To his credit, he followed up and everyone will today have received the briefing note I requested on rural and local communities. That came as an email today. I encourage everyone to read it. It is a really important explanatory briefing note from the Minister. I acknowledge his follow-up and thank him for providing that note because it will be very beneficial for us as we work in our communities.