Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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94. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he has given consideration to initiating a review into one-off builds prevalent in rural areas; his views on the issue that the prevalence of one-off builds in rural Ireland is having a detrimental effect on towns and villages; if he has considered examining town planning schemes used in European countries; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47117/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Project Ireland 2040, within which the National Planning Framework (NPF) sits, aims to maintain the fabric of our rural communities, support the growth of rural towns and villages while recognising the need for the countryside to continue to be a living and lived-in landscape, and invest to support job creation. The NPF is a national plan, with a high-level ambition of creating a single vision, a shared set of goals for every community across the country, and to deliver on these in a way that makes sense for our communities, rural and urban alike.

The NPF recognises the need for sustainable and co-ordinated development of our towns, villages and rural communities. To this end, Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies are also being developed, which will link strategic national planning and investment with regional-scale planning and the statutory development plan and local economic and community development planning functions of local authorities.

In addition, the Action Plan for Rural Development, published on 23 January 2017 and led by my colleague, the Minister for Rural and Community Development, takes a whole-of-Government approach to the economic and social development of rural Ireland and acts as an overarching structure for the co-ordination and implementation of rural initiatives across Government Departments and other public bodies.

Steps are being taken under both Project Ireland 2040 and the Action Plan for Rural Development to enable more proactive action on unlocking the development potential of rural towns and villages. These include the €1bn Rural Regeneration and Development Fund under which local authorities and other public bodies and stakeholders were invited to make applications earlier this year and on which an initial tranche of decisions will be announced before the end of the year.

On this basis, I am satisfied that a sufficiently flexible and robust policy and investment framework is in place to ensure that local authorities and other relevant stakeholders can take the necessary proactive steps in ensuring that redevelopment opportunities in rural towns and villages are maximised and that a sustainable alternative is available to the building of individual houses in wider rural and countryside areas. Accordingly, I have no plans at present to carry out a review of the kind referred to.