Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I welcome the Minister of State and my Commencement matter relates to the issue of new rural housing guidelines. As she will be aware, the Government has promised these guidelines for a number of years.

I have a letter dated 9 May 2017 in front of me from the then Minister who promised that there would be rural guidelines. I am sure the Minister of State will also be aware of the Flemish decree and the conflict in terms of European law regarding the suggestion about rural housing and regulation within the European Union around that and the ongoing legal challenges.

As I am a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, I straddle those two areas. Clearly, I am in very close contact with rural communities and urban areas within rural communities regarding the demands for housing. Yesterday afternoon, I spent time in Longford and Roscommon, last night I was in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, and a few days ago I was in the Acting Chair's constituency of Kildare and west Wicklow. In all those places, I talked to members of those communities about rural housing and the challenges they face when it comes to rural housing. As a result, I am aware that many farm families feel that the Government is inactive when it comes to rural housing policy and has forced many of them off the land of their forebears due to unreasonable policy decisions, restrictions in terms of the granting of planning permission for rural lands, and preventing the sons and daughters of farmers from living on the land and in communities in which they were born and reared. The Government is midway through its term in office yet it still has not published the new rural housing guidelines. The Minister's long-promised new rural housing guidelines need to be published so a degree of certainty, clarity and understanding about the possibilities of young families and young couples exploring the options of either restoring old farm homesteads or looking at new housing options in their rural communities. In particular, I am thinking of the younger people who wish to stay in their communities. I am sure that the Minister of State will understand the benefits of young people either staying in or returning to their rural communities to support and build up communities, which is so vital for the many parts of Ireland that are dying on their feet. These places need new people or young people to return to their roots. The advantages when family members return to their communities are immeasurable. We cannot overestimate the importance and significance of people being allowed to live in their own communities.

I fully recognise the importance of having a clear policy and objectives to protect the rural landscape because that is important. We must ensure that environmental matters are important in the context of housing options in the countryside. I am sure that the Minister of State will know that a sustainable rural housing policy is important. I call for a policy to be published in terms of sustainable rural housing guidelines for sustainable rural communities. Again, the Government must work on policy that constructively supports rural communities and secure affordable housing through community trusts. I mentioned the latter because there are community trusts in Scotland that buy land in rural communities and then build co-operatives to build houses. We need to consider community trusts as a first option in Ireland. We must also consider imaginative partnerships with local government, landlords and housing associations to deliver affordable housing options. Can we have a degree of certainty about the rural housing guidelines that the Government might bring in?

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Boyhan for raising the matter. I could not agree more that it is time to publish the guidelines. The last set was published in 2005 and it is now 2023, 18 years later. Following the passage through these Houses of the national planning framework and the legislation that went with it in 2018, it is crucial that the guidelines be published, and published shortly. They were due to be published at the end of last year but it was necessary to conduct an additional environmental assessment. They are to be published in quarter 1, I believe, or immediately thereafter.

The Senator is quite right that the updated guidelines will expand on the high-level spatial planning policy of the national planning framework, in particular on national policy objective 19, NPO 19, which relates to rural housing. This objective makes a clear policy distinction between rural areas under urban influence, that is, areas within the commuter catchment of cities, towns and centres of employment, and rural areas where population levels may be low or declining. NPO 19 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 proposed draft rural housing guidelines will set out relevant planning criteria to be applied in local authority development plans for rural housing, based on the high-level policy framework set by the national planning framework. The guidelines will continue to allow county development plans to provide for housing in the countryside based on the considerations detailed in NPO 19 of the national planning framework, and will also highlight the need to manage development in certain areas, such as the areas around cities and larger towns and environmentally sensitive areas.

Since the publication in 2005 of the current guidelines, which continue to have effect, there have been important changes to our planning system. Most notably, our obligations under European directives and international agreements relating to the management and protection of the environment and our climate have become more central to the operation of the planning system. The draft guidelines need to address all these complex environmental issues while also providing a framework for the sustainable management of housing in rural areas.

The last set of guidelines was published in 2005. It is now 2023, 18 years later. If we were to fast-forward 18 years, to 2041, we would expect to see a very different landscape again. I hope this has been considered in the preparation of the guidelines, along with the time at which they might next be reviewed. I certainly hope that in 2041 we will be looking at floating wind farms along the west coast, for example. There is a need to consider the planning implications of this and the additional housing that will be needed for the technicians with the 12-month-per-year jobs needed to support sustainable energy and floating terminals off the west coast. I hope the guidelines will consider this sort of vision or planning because I hope they relate to the future we all look forward to and agree we need. There will be very many benefits right along the west coast from the type of development envisaged.

I am told by the Department that the guidelines are at an advanced stage of drafting and that the strategic environmental assessment and appropriate assessment relating to the impact of the proposed guidelines on the environment, as required by EU legislation, are nearing finalisation.

It is intended to have the draft guidelines published for public consultation as soon as may be. The guidelines will subsequently be finalised, taking into account the inputs in the consultation process. I hope they will support more consistent and updated policies on rural housing within county development plans and across local authority areas, in line with the objectives of the national planning framework. I hope they are future-looking.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State. I agree with her. I did not believe I would have here today a Minister of State who lives in the same constituency as me. Let me quote the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown development plan, on which we are ad idem. It states it should be the policy of the planning authority to consider new proposals for one-off housing in areas outside the boundaries of established settlements, in accordance with the rural housing objectives and subject to compliance with normal planning and environmental criteria, and to encourage the renovation and reuse of existing traditional farmhouses, buildings such as traditional stone buildings and other buildings of local heritage merit for residential use or indeed tourism-related accommodation, subject to compliance with requirements on protecting the local character and the visual amenities. The plan also states rural housing should be sensibly sited, designed and landscaped in keeping with the character of rural areas. I am really referring to the mountains within our own county. The development plan of the local authority in question, of which the Minister of State and I were members, is progressive. That is the sort of relevant and future-proofed policy we should be embedding in our rural housing policy. Again, I thank the Minister of State.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator. I am not sure I can add much more to what he said. I completely agree. Balancing the need for additional housing where required and the need for development to be in keeping with the environment is our shared objective.