A delay in publishing updated rural housing guidelines is leading to rural communities “dying on their feet”, according to Senator Victor Boyhan.
Senator Boyhan told Agriland the “importance” of updated rural housing guidelines.
He explained that “families wish to return back to their roots to their family homes, and they are being denied any opportunity to have housing”.
The housing guidelines were originally due to be published prior to Christmas 2022, but were delayed until the second quarter of 2023.
“Elderly parents have been left behind, parish churches are struggling to stay open, sports clubs, and GAA clubs are in difficulty with holding memberships. This is about keeping the schools, the post office, the shop, the community open and alive,” Senator Boyhan added.
The senator is part of the Joint Oireachtas Committee for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and also part of the Joint Oireachtas Committee for Housing, Planning and Local Government.
Boyhan has been communicating with ministers in the housing department to move the process on.
Senator Boyhan wrote to the Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien on March, 10 this year. He asked the minister to confirm his “plans to publish the long awaited new rural housing guidelines”.
He explained that this would provide “a decree of clarity, certainty and coherence” to rural communities.
Department response
Minister of State with responsibility for local government and planning, Kieran O’Donnell responded to the senator at the time.
He confirmed that the updated housing guidelines were being prepared.
The response stated 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 which relates to rural housing”.
The objective will make a “clear policy distinction” between rural areas under urban influence on one hand, and “structurally weaker rural areas” where population levels may be low or declining, on the other.
“The guidelines are at an advanced stage of drafting and environmental assessments relating to the impact of the proposed guidelines on the environment are nearing completion,” Minister O’Donnell said.
The department of housing confirmed to Agriland that the guidelines are currently being prepared. The draft of the guidelines is subject to legal review at the moment and needs ministerial approval.
Following this stage, it is intended that the draft will be published for a period of public consultation.
In a statement, the department explained:
“While planning policy is a national, as opposed to an EU competence, due care is being taken to ensure the updated guidelines will not conflict with fundamental EU freedoms, will comply with EU environmental legislative requirements, and have due regard to decisions of the European Court of Justice.
“The draft planning guidelines will address these complex environmental and legal issues, while also providing a framework for the sustainable management of housing in rural areas.”
One-off housing
Senator Boyhan said he recognises that the Green Party has a certain “ideology” of one-off housing causing “sustainability issues”, but said through technologies now and bio drain schemes, “we can use imaginative approaches to ensure sustainability”.
He described more housing in rural Ireland as “a win-win situation”.
“There’s a lot of dereliction in rural towns. Off the top of my head, I think of Monasterevin, I think of Athy, and Loughrea. There are a lot of rural old market towns with dereliction. This could be an opportunity to tackle that,” Senator Boyhan said.
“The time for looking and the time for talking is over. We want guidance,” the senator added.
Macra
Macra is also calling on the government “to deliver the delayed rural housing guidelines”.
Macra president Elaine Houlihan said: “Ireland’s rural young people are once again leaving in droves because it is so difficult for them to have a future and build a house in their communities.
“The presence of rural housing guidelines could provide a glimmer of hope that the planning process would not be so prohibitive.”
Macra said it has consulted its members “extensively” on planning and housing development over the past two years.
Macra wants to see the guidelines published before the end of the second quarter this year, so “young people can make better informed decisions about staying in rural Ireland”.
Houlihan said: “Our future depends on the policies that government puts forward with housing being one of the major issues affecting young people.”