Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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124. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht whether he plans for a new rural specific development strategy, considering the National Planning Framework refers to self-sustaining rather than commuter driven activity, allowing its various city, town, villages and rural component to play to their strengths while moving away from a sprawl-led development model, yet it appears it is more urban than rural focused; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38301/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Balanced regional development is a central priority for this Government. It is a commitment we have enshrined in our Programme for Government and embedded through the revised National Planning Framework.

The National Planning Framework allows us to sustainably plan for future growth and achieve a more even distribution of population, housing, jobs and infrastructure across all regions.

More regionally-balanced growth is the focus of whole-of-Government policies across a range of areas, including our current national rural development policy, Our Rural Future 2021-2025.

Our Rural Future has provided vital investment and supports, strengthened local economies and improved the lives of many people in rural communities across Ireland.

The Programme for Government includes a commitment to publish and implement a new Our Rural Future from 2026. Work is now well underway to deliver on this commitment.

In doing this we will re-emphasise our understanding that rural development is integrally linked to policies across many Government Departments and we will continue our whole-of-Government approach as we develop this next phase of Ireland’s rural development policy.

The issue of regional balance has already featured strongly in our consultations on the new policy and will continue to shape its development. We know we must continue our approach of developing our regional towns and cities as viable centres of scale, which can act as alternatives and a counterbalance to the continued growth of Dublin and its surrounding region. In doing so, these cities and regional towns will act as drivers of growth for their wider region and rural areas.

As I have already set out, the process of developing the new Our Rural Future is well underway, informed by independent input from an OECD review, together with an extensive public and stakeholder consultation process.

A policy framework document, outlining the emerging themes and priorities which will inform the new policy in the period to 2030, will be published for a further period of written public consultation later in the year.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues across Government to deliver on our shared regional and rural development goals.