I am glad to get an opportunity to say a few words about the late, great Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. He was a great Kerryman who had a unique voice and created excitement in all the games he commentated on. It was better to listen when he commentated on the radio than to watch the game on the television because there was more drama. He created excitement and he knew so much about hurling and football, the players who were playing, the rules and so forth. He was a powerhouse of a man. We send our condolences to his wife, Helena, and his family, his extended family in Dingle and all his friends in Kerry, around the country and across the whole world. He was a powerful man.

I will also say a word about Deputy Michael McGrath, who is departing for Europe. It is Europe's gain and our loss that he is leaving this Chamber because we all depended and relied on him so much.

I sympathise with Natasha O'Brien, who had to come here today, on the horrible treatment she has been receiving.

I again raise issues about people who try to provide a home for themselves, which is a basic thing. Many of those who try to get planning permission are being refused because there is a designation in Kerry - I am sure it is also in place around the country - with regard to areas designated as being under significant urban-generated pressure. It is denying people from building on an acre or two close to where they were bred, born and reared. It is also designed to stop people coming out from towns and cities. It is being applied 4 or 5 miles outside Killorglin and Killarney. A girl who wants to build beside her father and mother 7 miles east of Killarney will not get permission to do so even though she got a site only half a mile from where she was born and reared. The only people who get it - we are glad they do - are farmers' sons and daughters. Local people are being denied by this rule. We do not begrudge the sons and daughters of farmers because we need them to have a house, in the same way as anyone else.

I will mention another issue that I have raised several times before. If you live alongside a national primary road and you want to build a new house that comes out using an existing entrance or exit, permission will be refused forthwith. It is the same for national secondary roads. In County Kerry, we have 98 km of national primary roads and 337 km of national secondary roads. I believe we have more than many other counties. The Planning Regulator has now come back to Kerry County Council asking the elected members in the Kenmare electoral area to reduce the amount of land they have proposed to zone as residential in south Kerry in the towns of Kenmare, Sneem, Waterville, Cahersiveen, Valentia, Glenbeigh and Killorglin.

I believe the Planning Regulator is wrong, as if there is no competition in the market and lesser amounts of lands are zoned available, it will mean certain landowners will have a monopoly and can drive up the cost of a site or sites. These things have to be rectified.

We are talking of affordable homes. If the word "affordable" was a concrete block, it would build a building as tall as the Empire State Building in America, because the word has been mentioned so often. These people have a site they get from their parents or locally. It is affordable and gives them a start. We have to do something to give them a chance. The blockage at present is hurting so many sons and daughters who want to get going.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I very much enjoyed his tribute to Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. The idea that listening to a match on the radio was more enjoyable than watching it on the television probably captures the essence of many people's experience and memory.

Everybody, or certainly most people in this House, wants to see a balanced approach to rural housing. The Deputy is pointing to people who are doing their best to put a roof over the head of their family, son or daughter and provide for themselves. We need a situation where people are facilitated to build on their own land while remaining consistent with national spatial planning policy and providing access to services, sewers and other important facilities.

The Deputy listed a number of places in his constituency. I understand the draft ministerial direction for the Kenmare municipal district local area plan was put out to public consultation from 6 June to 20 June. In other words, it has just closed. The chief executive will now review the submission and report to the Office of the Planning Regulator. This has to be done within four weeks of 20 June. The Office of the Planning Regulator then considers the chief executive's report and has to report back to the Minister within three weeks. The Minister then has six weeks to issue a final decision, having received the reports from the chief executive of the council and the Planning Regulator. This kind of activity should now be seen as a routine part of our planning processes. Four local area directions have issued so far this year, with final directions issued for Letterkenny, Castlebar and Athenry. I am sure the Deputy would not ask me to intervene in that ongoing process because it has just gone out to public consultation and has some way to go.

I hear what the Deputy is saying about the Office of the Planning Regulator. We need to remember how we got here. The office was established in 2019 on foot of recommendations made by the Tribunal to Inquire into Certain Planning Matters and Payments, called the Mahon tribunal. Its role is to ensure the local authorities and An Bord Pleanála support and implement national planning policy. It also has a role in planning research, training and public awareness to promote public engagement on the planning process.

Updated rural housing guidelines are currently being prepared by the Department of housing and will expand on existing policy in the national planning framework which relates to rural housing. We will also have later this year new housing targets and a national planning framework, which will begin to give us a level of granular detail as to what that means for County Kerry or any other county in Ireland. That might be useful in addressing some of the issues the Deputy raises.

I thank the Taoiseach very much for his reply but I ask again if he will do something about the clause on significant urban-generated pressure that is denying so many people planning permission. There are people who are asking for nothing only fair play, and they are not getting it at present. They will build the house, pay for it and create employment. They will do all that themselves.

We have asked the question about national roads several times. That rule was implemented in 2012 and has created havoc for many people who want to come out an existing entrance - not create a new entrance - and to come out a safe entrance. A planner told me this morning that a person who wants to build in an area under this designation need not bother applying as there is no hope in the world.

I do not see any need for zoning land at all around towns or villages. Let the planning authority decide whether the site should get planning on its own merits, whether the services are there and all that goes with that. The zoning is only creating another layer. It is making property and sites more expensive and denying people the chance of buying an affordable house.

I thank Deputy Danny Healy-Rae. I will ask that the points the Deputy has made are fed into the consideration being given to the Minister for the updated rural housing guidelines, which are currently being prepared by the Department of housing. The draft rural housing guidelines set out the relevant planning criteria to be applied in local authority development plans for rural housing and that is based on the high-level policy framework set out by the national planning framework. We will have a new national planning framework later this year.

In relation to the other issue specific to Kenmare, obviously that local area plan now will go through the various process that I outlined in my earlier answer.

I hope those two processes, both the rural housing guidelines and the Kenmare municipal district local area plan, can address some of the issues that the Deputy has brought to the Dáil today.