I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy John Cummins, back to Seanad Éireann. The Minister of State will speak for ten minutes, group spokespersons for eight minutes and all other Senators for five minutes. The Minister of State may reply not later than 4.20 p.m. Statements will conclude at 4.30 p.m.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and Members for giving me the opportunity to update the House on the subject of rural planning. As announced in the Government’s housing action plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities, both the Minister, Deputy Browne, and I will, subject to Government approval, issue a national planning statement, NPS, on rural housing in the second half of this year. However, both the Minister, Deputy Browne and I are working to finalise a draft of the proposed NPS in the coming days in a bid to bring it to Cabinet very shortly. The draft NPS will then undergo a full environmental assessment process, which includes public consultation.

The new statement will refine, update and replace the existing 2005 sustainable rural housing guidelines to reflect the established policy in the national planning framework which supports new housing in rural areas and rural development more generally. The new statement will provide more clarity and consistency across the various planning authorities by defining where and how rural housing can be developed. The new national planning statement will build on established policy in the revised national planning framework of 2025 which seeks to facilitate and promote new rural housing for those with a local housing need to live or work in a rural area, balanced with protecting the rural character of the countryside, preventing urban-generated sprawl and promoting regeneration of rural settlements. In particular, the statement will expand on national policy objective, NPO, 28 of the national planning framework, which makes a clear policy distinction between rural areas under urban influence, that is, those areas within the commuter catchment of cities, large towns and centres of employment, and structurally weaker rural areas where population levels may be low or declining. NPO 28 is also aligned with the established approach whereby considerations of social or economic need are to be applied by planning authorities in the assessment of development proposals for new one-off housing in rural areas under urban influence.

I believe the development of housing for people who are an intrinsic part of the rural community, based on an economic or social need, should be facilitated subject to regular planning considerations around site suitability, house design and other appropriate factors. Since the publication of the current sustainable rural housing guidelines in 2005, which continue to have effect, there have been important changes to our planning system and our obligations under European directives and international agreements. That is why we are seeking to urgently bring forward an update of these guidelines. Importantly, it is clear to me that since the guidelines were issued 21 years ago, inconsistencies in the implementation of rural housing policy have arisen in the approaches of local authorities. That can be incredibly frustrating for the public, where someone in one county might be facilitated to build a rural one-off house whereas someone in the same circumstances in a neighbouring county might not. The new national planning statement is being devised with this in mind and will seek to bring clarity and consistency of approach nationally, so that if you are in Donegal, Clare, Waterford or Louth, applications for rural housing will be adjudicated on a level playing field.

It is also our intention to address planning policy regarding rural and Gaeltacht housing together given the key interactions between rural housing generally and housing in Gaeltacht areas. Officials in my Department are engaging with officials in the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht to consider how that is achieved in an appropriate manner. It is fair to say that a significant overhaul of the existing rural planning guidelines will be implemented through this new national planning statement that will make it easier for people who are from or who have a need to live in a rural area to attain planning permission, with the grounds for refusal narrowed, particularly around the likes of ribbon or backland development.

In addition to rural one-off housing, the Government is also progressing a range of actions contained within the Government’s housing action plan that will support the delivery of increased housing supply and housing choice throughout the country, including in rural and Gaeltacht areas. The town centre first policy, which is a joint initiative between my Department and the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, has put in place a suite of measures, including the alignment of various funding schemes to support the regeneration, repopulation and development of rural towns and villages. A number of major Government funding streams are now aligned closely with the town centre first policy approach, with a focus on tackling vacancy and dereliction, increasing housing supply and providing the necessary facilities and public infrastructure to attract more people into rural settlements.

The rural regeneration and development fund, which is managed by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, is a key capital investment scheme which directly supports the objectives of Our Rural Future and the town centre first policy. The town and village renewal scheme was introduced in 2016 and is one of a number of measures designed to rejuvenate rural towns and villages throughout Ireland. In line with our commitment in Our Rural Future, the town and village renewal scheme priorities are reviewed at the end of each scheme year to ensure that funding is targeted effectively to support vibrant and attractive communities to respond to changing needs and opportunities.

The ready to build scheme, which was launched in September 2022 under the croí cónaithe towns fund, local authorities make serviced sites in towns and villages available to individual purchasers. These sites are available at a discount on the market value for the building of a property for occupation as the principal private residence of the purchaser. The level of discount depends on the level of servicing cost incurred by the local authority, with discounts up to a maximum of €30,000. The vacant homes unit in my Department is currently engaging with local authorities and the CCMA on a review of this scheme. This, coupled with the CPO activation programme, the croí cónaithe vacant property refurbishment grant and call 3 of the urban regeneration and development fund, are supporting those in rural towns and villages across Ireland to deliver new homes that respond to the varying needs and aspirations of their communities and to tackle issues relating to vacancy and dereliction.

Ultimately, the issue of rural housing planning policy has been a priority of mine since coming into this position last year. I assure the House that both the Minister, Deputy Browne, and I are working together to finalise these changes very shortly. Every year, up to 5,000 one-off rural homes are delivered throughout the country. We believe the changes we intend to introduce will see that number increase, not at the expense of rural towns and villages but in support of them. I thank Members in this House for their support for the impending changes we are due to bring in.

I welcome guests of the Minister, Deputy Dara Calleary, from Ballina, County Mayo, to the Public Gallery. Senators P. J. Murphy and Cathal Byrne are sharing time. is that agreed? Agreed.

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the Seanad today to discuss the very important subject that is rural planning. Coming from County Galway, a strongly agricultural region within convenient commuting distance of Galway city, I can safely say that, throughout my time in politics to date, the subject of rural planning has been the single most contentious and divisive subject that I have dealt with. I welcome the Minister of State's willingness to discuss this topic here today and the Government's ambition to put in place consistent and nationally applicable guidelines on rural planning.

When considering the subject of rural planning, there are a number of important factors that must be taken into consideration. First and foremost among them must be the need and right of rural people to live their lives within the communities they were reared in, where they feel at home and where they belong. Second, we must consider the need for rural communities to survive. We have learned throughout the past century in rural Ireland that rural communities rarely stand still.

They grow and develop or they slowly die. We have seen shops, pubs, post offices, etc. in villages throughout rural Ireland close over the past decade, all while the local authorities imposed stringent planning regulations preventing young couples from building homes in those communities.

Serious consideration must be given to how we picture the Irish countryside in the future. We must ask whether we are willing to reopen Irish rural roads to the prospect of ribbon development. Have we learned lessons from what happened in many areas during the relaxed planning rules of the early Celtic tiger years? In my county, there are many miles of rural roads lined with ribbon development from the Celtic tiger years, with farmers farming land directly behind the homes of people with whom they have no connection. Needless to say, this very often leads to tension and aggravation. This is something that we need to consider.

That being said, with all of this taken into consideration no rural community can be closed to development. As the Minister of State knows, over 540 of our rural villages are without municipal wastewater infrastructure. As such, they have remained closed to development for the past 15 years. While there is light at the end of the tunnel for some of these villages through the new developer-led wastewater infrastructure guidelines, many villages will not qualify under the guidelines as they currently stand due to the lack of river or above-ground drainage in those villages. That, unfortunately, will be the case for virtually every village in the limestone region of south and mid County Galway. If, as a State, we are unable to service our rural villages to a degree that allows them to develop and meet the housing needs of the local population and, at the same time, are unable as a State to generate guidelines or specifications to allow private contractors to do so, then we certainly have an obligation to facilitate the building of homes by rural people in the hinterlands of these villages. I suggest that while the best and most sustainable place to meet the housing needs of our rural people is in local rural villages, but if we are not in a position to facilitate that, which, in many cases, we are not, we must facilitate the building of homes in the rural hinterlands of these villages.

I welcome the opportunity to engage with the Minister of State on what is a vital and crucial issue for rural Ireland. My county of Wexford is a predominantly rural county. For the five and a half years I served on Wexford County Council, not a week went by without engagement from somebody making an application for rural planning permission. My view on this is very simple. We have to allow local people from the local area to be able to build on local land. With that in mind, I very much welcome the commitment of the Minister of State to ensuring we will have houses built in the countryside and allow people to build on their own land. That, in turn, will support our local schools, shops and GAA and soccer clubs. To me, that is what keeps a healthy and vibrant rural Ireland.

I very much welcome the changes the Minister of State has made to allow modular houses to be built in people's backyards and to remove planners from people's backyards. That is very much to be welcomed. It also recognises the real world realities, namely that people choose to buy and live in modern, well-constructed and professionally built backyard units.

If we support changes in rural planning guidelines, we have to be serious and consider changing the five-in-a-row rule and ribbon development. Why is it the case that anywhere else in the country five houses in a row are allowed, but a family member who wants to build a fifth house is not currently permitted to do so? That is my experience in Wexford. It is wrong and should be changed. I would very much encourage the Minister of State to change that.

The reality is that we have an ageing population in this country. Many people seek to downsize. At the moment, in my area in Wexford if people want to downsize they have to build a unit that can be connected to a main house. I do not think that makes sense. People want independence and to be able to live separately from the family member to whom they might gift the main family house. At the same time, they want to stay close to them. If we are to support and encourage people in making their own choice to downsize, we have to allow for houses to be built at the back of existing houses which are not required to be connected. That acts as an artificial barrier to a lot of people choosing to downsize.

I support local need rules and the idea that we cannot have a situation whereby people who do not have a genuine connection to a local area secure planning permission. I encourage the Minister of State to base decisions on social and socioeconomic factors. For example, a teacher who has moved to teach in a small rural school should be encouraged and supported in securing planning permission in that local community setting. I think in particular of difficulties I have had with constituents who are farm labourers, milking herds of daily dairy cows in several local parishes around the one area. For whatever reason, they have not been recognised as having made a contribution to the local economy worthy and meritorious of them securing local planning permission. Those are some practical things I ask the Minister of State and his officials to take back. I support the work he is doing. I welcome the publication of the new rural guidelines.

I welcome the Minister of State to the Seanad. The proposal is a welcome move. I have considered all of his points, a few of which I will reference. He spoke about a public consultation, which is important. I wrote to his Department regarding modular units at the back of houses, a matter which went to a period of public consultation. That consultation has not been published on the Department's website. I had no support from the Department when I made inquiries on behalf of people who made submissions to the public consultation process. I have not spoken to the Minister of State directly, to be fair, but I have sent correspondence to the Minister and Department. If we are going to have a consultation, it has to be meaningful and transparent. If I make a submission to my county development plan, I am listed as having made a submission. Such information is listed in the appendices of the report on the consultation. If we are having a consultation, it must be genuine, open and transparent. I could submit a freedom of information request, and I have been advised that I would get that information. That is not the way we should be doing our business. If people make submissions to a statutory or non-statutory public consultation initiated by the Minister of State's Department, or any other Department, we need to see greater transparency.

I am no stranger to making requests since the Flemish decree. I have a letter from the Minister, Deputy Browne, dated 24 July 2025. I have a letter from the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and one from the Minister, Deputy Browne, from October 2025. I have a letter from the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, dated 30 October 2024. I had a Commencement matter with the then Minister of State, Deputy Kieran O'Donnell, on 22 March 2023. The Minister, Deputy Burke, was one of the greatest supporters of rural housing. He had responsibility for planning, development and housing in the Minister of State's Department and was effectively doing the same job he is doing now. In correspondence he said people should have the right to live where they come from. I very much welcome that approach. He was very supportive of the planning guidelines and expected progress.

We have been told for many years that planning guidelines were imminent and had been drafted. There have been some changes. Let us have less of the history lesson. We are where we are today and I want to welcome that.

I want to reference a press release I issued to Agriland on 13 November 2025 in which I said that it was with some disappointment that I discovered that there was no clarity on the rural housing guidelines, which it was expected would be addressed as part of the national housing policy.

When the national housing policy was published, there was great expectation. A number of farm organisations said they expected one-off rural housing objectives to be included in the national housing plan. That did not happen. We were told that there would be these national planning statements and they would address the issues into the future. We are now hearing we will have them in the second half of this year. That is to be welcomed although things are a bit slow. Clearly, one-off housing on family-owned land and farm homesteads is something people feel they have a right to. The Minister of State represents an urban and a rural constituency and is very versed and capable in planning. I served on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage with him and know his in-depth knowledge and commitment in this area. That is not in question and I want to say that to him. I acknowledge the enormous work and expertise he has in this area. However, farmers in rural communities want to be able to have their children live on their land. They work the soil and have sweat on their brow. They are very proud of their achievement, to initially have a modest holding and expand it over generations into a more substantial holding. They want to celebrate the fruits of their labour. The homestead, the family farm is at the very heart of that. Many of them are indigenous people.

The Minister of State touched on the Gaeltacht and I welcome that, it is important. We need housing guidance for the islands as well. They are unique. The Gaeltacht is unique, the indigenous Irish speakers; indeed the Minister of State has a Gaeltacht in his own county of Waterford, and that is an important recognition. I also wish to acknowledge that Deputy Albert Dolan, who was then a councillor, did an awful lot of work and has been a great advocate in Galway, as indeed was Councillor Geraldine Donohue. These were two councillors on Galway County Council who kept the pressure on, kept asking the questions and indeed Deputy Dolan is now a TD for the constituency. I see from parliamentary questions that he has been knocking at the door. We all know the case but at the end of the day it is important.

There was an article quite recently on how depopulation was reaching crisis levels for the GAA in south Kerry. We have GAA clubs that are closing down. I have been speaking to bishops in the Catholic Church and indeed every other congregation. Churches are closing down. There are many reasons for that, but at the very heart of our rural communities there are national schools closing down. The knock-on effect of depopulation in some places is impacting on trade, shops and agriculture. We see marts closing down. There are many other reasons and I cannot attribute it all to housing but it is a very substantial part of it. I welcome the decision to honour, at long last, a commitment as it had been at the Attorney General's and everyone else's office.

Our Rural Future: Rural Development Policy 2021-2025 is now out of date but cross-departmental work is taking place on a new iteration of that plan. I pay tribute to Deputy Dara Calleary and indeed Heather Humphreys, the former Minister. It is a wonderful Department and a lovely space to work in. They have really advocated on housing. For the few months since this has lapsed, there were some key objectives set down by our current Minister. One was measure 90, that is, to update the rural housing guidelines for planning authorities to address rural housing in the broader rural development context. I genuinely welcome what is happening. It took a hell of a long time. It is happening on the Minister of State's watch and I acknowledge that. Whatever we do, let us have a draft of the guidelines and let us put them out to meaningful consultation. I do not think it would be right to put out any sense of guidelines. We need to take an extra few weeks, or a month or two, to get real input for the public consultation and feedback. If the Minister of State can do so, I urge him to commit to publishing the feedback from that consultation because it is important also.

The Minister of State is very welcome. It is always good to have an opportunity to talk about housing and to remind the Opposition about the great progress we have made in housing, particularly in the lifetime of these last two Governments. Last year we delivered 36,000 homes, up 20% on the prior year and record development. In the first quarter of this year just under 8,000 new homes have been delivered with a further 8,400 homes started and construction beginning. It is arguably the strongest quarter in the history of construction in this country since the boom. It is very important to state those facts. We have immense challenges in housing but we are making particular progress in the face of almost incessant opposition and criticism from some of the people on the other side of the room and people who probably have an opportunity to feed into a housing policy in Northern Ireland as well, where they struggle to build houses. That is for another day.

It is important to set out what the Government and its predecessor have done in terms of housing. We revised the local authority loan, we implemented a fresh start component to allow people in second unions a fresh start opportunity and an opportunity to get a loan. That was particularly helpful. We have the local authority affordable purchase scheme, the first home scheme and the help to buy scheme. We also looked at the income bands in social housing and the Minister of State will appreciate that we need to look at them again. We have also introduced cost rental, as well as the vacant home, croí cónaithe and build over the shop schemes. Incidentally, croí cónaithe and the vacant home scheme were vehemently opposed by Sinn Féin and are arguably among the most successful housing projects we have ever implemented, not only in this country. It has been replicated across Europe now. I am waiting to see what criticism they are going to have of these proposals. Sinn Féin will probably not want anyone to build in rural Ireland.

We have also had the ready to build scheme, which the Minister of State outlined in great detail. It is a very good scheme. There is town centre first, town and village renewal and the backyard exemptions. There is no Government across Europe that has done as much on housing as this Government has done.

Whisht up and talk about the Bill.

Do not interrupt. I will not interrupt the Senator.

The Senator is able to interrupt when he wants. Do not be shouting back and forth about Sinn Féin. This has nothing to do with Sinn Féin. You are in government. The Senator is talking about records. Talk about record homelessness, please. That is on your watch. Whisht up.

Ciúnas.

She cannot interrupt like that, a Chathaoirligh. She cannot be talking like that.

Senator Flaherty without interruption.

Senator Flaherty is able to do it all the time when he wants.

I know the truth hurts. Sinn Féin has no track record at all in Northern Ireland in building houses. None at all. I am sure if they want to come down from Northern Ireland and talk to the Ministers and officials, we will give them all the help and assistance we can and try to kick-start house-building in Northern Ireland. It is non-existent up there, where Sinn Féin has control of the levers of power and is not able to build anything.

We are not going to be taking lessons from you.

I will go on and talk about the 2005 sustainable housing guidelines. As many speakers have said, they are well overdue a revision. I do not think rural planning needs the big shake-up that some people say. The problem with rural planning is subjectivity. There is a planner in County Longford and a planner in Galway. If they are given the exact same planning application, they will not give the same answer. The problem with rural planning is subjectivity. Everyone has a different view. I do not envy anyone who is going to bring out the new guidelines to tackle that. It is very difficult to tackle subjectivity. If I have a concern about what has been set out in the proposal, it is the timeline. My colleague, Senator Boyhan is looking for a detailed and extensive public consultation, which is very welcome, but it is going to take time. The problem for us is that across the country at the minute, we have a problem with our planners in terms of subjectivity. There is absolutely no consistency in how planners will treat a planning application, notwithstanding the guidelines that are already in place. Every one of them has a completely different interpretation.

I will give some examples. I have seen planning applications in recent months where a lady had a six-bedroom house. She is separated. Her son was coming back from the UK with his young family. She wanted to build a small house on the farm and she wanted the son and his family to move into the large house. That made eminent sense to me but it did not make any sense to a planner, who said that because she had got planning for this house 25 years ago, she was not entitled to look for planning for another house. Fortunately she reapplied and she got the planning. I had another instance where the planner came back to somebody and, because they were looking for a new house on their father's land, they were told there was no identifiable housing need in that area. We and the Opposition all agree that there is a housing crisis in the country and a housing need in every part of Ireland. For a planner to come back and say something like that is quite incredible. The guidelines are great but we need a quick fix for this.

Some directive needs to be sent to all our local authorities on rural planning to say we are going to have these new guidelines. They are fantastic, but with the best will in the world, it is hard to see them coming into place in the lifetime of this Government. We need meaningful action and engagement with our planners right across the country. Planners do not like to be told what to do. They certainly do not like to be told what to do by councillors, Senators or TDs. The Department does need to bring in our rural planners and set out to them exactly the challenges that people are facing in Ireland. I always say that the people who are the most immune and do not understand that there is a housing crisis are often the officials, civil servants and, in many cases, the planners. They do not understand the scale of the crisis people are facing, particularly young people starting out with their first home. I would welcome if the Minister of State could take this message back to the Department and if consideration could be given to bringing all the planners together, having a think tank session to see the blockages that are there and perhaps get consensus among planners and agreement on what we should be doing. In their defence, I will say some fantastic houses are being built right across rural Ireland. There is an element of consistency in the quality of some of them, and the planners are to be commended on that.

While I have the Minister of State here, I will mention a few other points. There is the question of downsizing, especially in large and provincial towns. We have a lot of elderly people. In many cases, one person who would like to downsize is living alone in what could be a four-bedroom or five-bedroom house, but there are no small bungalows for them to move to. We need to look at the situation. Some local authorities in Dublin did offer a scheme where it was possible for people to sell their home and get a local authority property. In many cases, these are small developments of two-bedroom units. They are ideal for people looking for companionship and having people living next door. It is almost a retirement village setting. I think there is a huge opportunity there. It would free up these larger houses and get them back on the market. It makes eminent sense to me and I would like to see the Department giving this idea some consideration.

The other point I ask the Minister of State to take back is that our current social housing model is challenged insofar as the income thresholds are concerned. We need to look at this aspect. I fear a section of our community has also fallen between two stools. These are people ineligible for social housing and unable to afford a mortgage. We need to look at bringing back a variation of the rent-to-buy scheme, where people would not qualify for social housing but could qualify for a social house based on it being rented to buy. People would be given ten years to buy the house, paying a rent much higher than what would be paid in social housing. People would then have an option to buy out the balance after the ten years. I think there is merit in looking at this idea as well. It would work well for the holistic effect of these communities. We would get in the aforementioned and much lauded gardaí, teachers and all those people into these communities. It would be very much about building our communities and empowering people. I would like if the Minister of State could take back these two suggestions with him. I commend him on his work on these guidelines and I do earnestly hope they can come into effect before the end of the lifetime of this Government.

It will be before the end of the year.

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House.

Is the Senator sharing time with Senator Collins and Senator Tully?

Yes.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Lovely. I am choosing not to engage with the class clown who just wants to run down Sinn Féin on housing rather than look closely at the current policies. All the records the Government has were spoken about. I am talking about the record homelessness and the people I meet every day. I think it is time for the Senator to go back to school when he looks at the power-sharing arrangement.

We meet the same people.

No. I am sorry. The Senator is not allowed to talk down to me. This is my time, so Senator Flaherty needs to sit there and be quiet and listen to me. Okay?

There is no need to be so condescending.

We have power-sharing in the North, but we are not in bed with the Opposition like the Government is. The Senator should go back to school and learn how things work. I am glad to have the opportunity-----

That is very condescending.

Sorry, this is my time, so shut your mouth or get out.

What if I said that to you? What if I spoke like that to you?

No, I am sorry-----

Senator McCormack, without interruption.

Sure I could not speak like that to Senator McCormack.

No, I am sorry. On a point of order, I am trying to have a chance to speak. Can he shut his mouth?

That is terrible language.

I ask Senator McCormack to continue, without interruption. I thank the Senators.

Now, for people who do not believe Sinn Féin wants anything to do with rural planning and does not understand rural life, some of us do live in a rural constituency. I live in a rural constituency called County Laois. I deal with the issues we have and I do not see records being broken with all the progress being made. I do welcome the opportunity-----

There is record house building in County Laois.

Please, Senator.

Senators, please. Everybody knows the rules of the House. One voice at a time, and that is the Senator who is standing.

I welcome the opportunity to talk about rural planning and how important it is for rural communities. I have come from the social protection committee, where we have had the GAA in. Those witnesses have been telling us about declining demographics. I see this happening. I see it in the village I come from, Ballyroan. We can see the impact this has, so I really welcome the opportunity for us to try to make a difference here. Every week since I started in this job, someone has contacted me who has not been able to get planning permission on their own land. I grew up on a farm and I know the problems that come with that. I want to talk about the progress we can make and positive steps forward. The Minister of State will have to agree that, over the years, there have been many plans and promised actions but these have not materialised into work on the ground.

Good rural planning means investing in the delivery of social and affordable homes in rural towns and villages by making it easier and cheaper for people to reuse vacant and derelict homes and by ensuring that rules on one-off homes are clear, fair and consistently applied across all local authorities. In my county of Laois, the affordable housing targets have been set incredibly low - I would say stupidly low. Does the Minister of State know that the target for affordable housing in Laois was set at eight houses for 2026? Thankfully, the county council has managed to provide a few more houses than that figure, but I would love to know why the affordable home target for Laois is so low in the first place.

I will say this again because it is a clear signal of how rural constituencies like County Laois are forgotten. The county has a population of 92,000 people and the affordable housing target set for the county was eight affordable homes in 2026. I would like to hear back from the Minister of State on this. I speak to ordinary workers and families from Laois every week who tell me they are a few hundred euro over the income threshold for social housing but are in no way close to ever being able to buy. We will not even talk about the rental market, because the Government has clearly made a shambles of that. The Minister of State knows the story. People have been telling us every day for years how their dignity and independence have been torn from them by the housing crisis, especially by the lack of properly affordable homes. I thank the Minister of State for coming in to discuss this issue.

I grew up in Limerick city and then moved out to the county when I was 17. I thought my life was over. How could I live somewhere where there was not a shop two minutes' walk away from me? I ended up loving it so much, however, that I actually moved further into the county. I am in a place now where the bin service will not drive down to us because we are so rural. We have to bring the bins three miles up the road for the bin service to collect them. That is the choice I made because I absolutely love living in the county. I love being surrounded by wilderness and having a little bit of solitude every now and again, where I know that if somebody is going to be calling to me, I am going to get a phone call first. I do not get the knocks on the door. I have never had a politician call to my house, which is one of the upsides. I do not have to go through the rigmarole of telling them who I am.

Where I am living, however, it is becoming necessary to merge two GAA clubs just to have enough kids to make a team. It is actually quite sad when they cannot play in their own parish and have to join another parish. There was a time when there was a rule that you had to get permission to go to another parish. Now, they are all being amalgamated. Our schools are losing teachers because we cannot keep enough children in our country schools. The schools are losing a teacher and that teacher is losing their job. Schools are also losing out on SNA supports because there are not enough kids from the previous year to make up the required number.

We also have the case where a lot of our young people are not seeing that they could possibly build a house on their own land because the bureaucracy is very difficult to navigate. I had to drill my own well because we do not get water services down that far. A lot of people are not willing to do that, so they are moving abroad. This is stopping the next generation from having kids who will join the sports clubs, and so on and so forth. I do not necessarily think there needs to be a reset, but we do need to start taking away some of that red tape when it comes to rural housing.

I welcome that the publication of the new planning guidelines will be later this year because this is well overdue. We have been waiting for about a decade for these guidelines. I welcome that they are going to be published and that they are subject to proper consultation and scrutiny. There is a lack of consistency across rural areas in the planning sections, and the Minister of State acknowledged this himself. In fact, there is a lack of consistency within county councils between the different planners.

Many people brought up in rural areas do not want to live in the larger towns or in the cities. In many cases, they cannot afford to. They do not want to settle down in the towns and cities, especially after a few years.

They want to move back to be close to relations for child minding and so forth. The policy of providing serviced land on the outskirts of villages is a good one. It gives an option to people to live in their local community but still have serviced land and a village beside them and so on. There are cases where the council does not have any land banks next to villages or towns, so that needs to be addressed. We do not want to see the mistakes of the past repeated, where, under Fianna Fáil Governments, house building was allowed on flood plains. We now see the consequences of that when there is actual flooding within developments.

In relation to once-off planning, I have come across cases - somebody mentioned it in the Chamber already - in which people who bought or built houses in rural areas with no connection to the locality end up making complaints about agricultural activity. They are coming out of cities and so forth. People from a locality, especially family members of the land owner, should be allowed to build a lot easier. I have come across situations where they have had to jump through hoops to prove a connection to a local area. That should not be happening if they have grown up in that local area. They want to be close to their family and so on.

The timing of utility connections is having a huge impact on the building of houses, as well as the lack of supports for small- or medium-sized developers in this country. Many of them find they cannot afford to build houses in the locality.

In relation to Senator Flaherty, we are devising a drinking game that every time he mentions Sinn Féin in one of his speeches, we will have a drink. He will have to stop or we will end up as alcoholics.

Have a drink.

The Senator will probably tell us she cannot afford drink.

The Minister of State is very welcome to the House. This is something he is very knowledgeable and passionate about. I welcome the publication of the new planning guidelines. If we are serious about planning reform, we must also be serious about the democratic structures through which planning decisions are made. On that front, the direction of travel gives cause for real concern. I say this not as a critic from the sidelines but as someone who served on the Seanad Public Consultation Committee on the future of local democracy that was chaired by our own Cathaoirleach, Senator Mark Daly. On that committee, we heard from councillors, communities, planning experts and citizens about what is actually happening on the ground. What we heard was consistent and damning. Local democracy in Ireland is being hollowed out, decision by decision, through secondary legislation that bypasses proper scrutiny. The Planning and Development Act 2024 is the latest chapter in that story.

Since 2014, we have lost 678 elected local representatives. We went from 1,600 in 2007 to 949 people with a democratic mandate to speak for their communities. As the number of elected voices has shrunk, the power of unelected officials and central government agencies has grown. Our committee's research on local government functions from 1993 to 2024 documented this drift in meticulous detail. The replacement of section 28 ministerial guidelines with national planning statements, which all regional and local authorities must now follow, is the latest expression of this centralising logic. The Minister issues the statement. The council follows it. The councillors are watching.

I welcome the Minister of State's commitment to reform and I share his concern about inconsistency across local authorities, but good planning policy and strong local democracy must go hand in hand. I urge him to ensure, in seeking greater consistency, that we do not inadvertently remove decision-making further from the communities it affects most. Development plans are an example. Under the new Act, development plans will have a ten-year lifespan instead of a six-year lifespan. The Minister will be able to issue urgent directions requiring change. That sounds like modernisation. What it actually means is that a community's vision for its own area, painstakingly negotiated through a democratic process, can be overriden by a Minister's direction from a desk in the Customs House. That is not planning reform; that is decision-making removed from the communities it affects most.

Then there is the question of the reserved functions being stripped from elected councils. I refer, for example, to the section 183 function for disposal of council land to the Land Development Agency and the Part 8 function for councils' own housing developments. They were taken away quietly, without any fanfare or serious public debate. Our committee called for their immediate reinstatement. That call has not been answered. Why has it not happened? What is the argument for keeping elected councillors out of decisions about their own communities' land?

Our report recommended also that councillors be given access to independent legal, financial and planning advice. At the moment, when a major planning application comes before a council, the developer arrives with a full legal team and experts in planning. The councillors who will vote on it have nothing equivalent. That is not a level playing field. It is a structural advantage built into the system for those with resources and it needs to change.

I want to ask a straightforward question about the local democracy task force, which was the central recommendation of our report. The Government was supposed to convene it within three months of taking office. Has it been established? If not, the Minister of State should tell us today when it will be established. The public who engaged in that consultation and gave their time, expertise and experience deserve an answer. Planning affects everything. We know that. It affects where people live, what their towns look like, and whether their communities have green space or services or a future. These decisions should be made as close as possible to the people they affect by representatives those people can hold accountable. What we are building instead is a system where the big decisions are made centrally, the difficult ones are deferred to agencies and the councillor's role is increasingly ceremonial. That is not what I would consider planning reform; that is managed decline of local democracy and it has to stop.

I welcome the Minister of State to the Seanad this afternoon. I thank him for the work he is doing on this, as well as my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Browne. I have spoken to the Minister at length about this. It is interesting that we are going back to what my constituency colleague - the former Minister, Dick Roche - did in 2005 when the last planning guidelines were published. We should be careful what we wish for. Sometimes guidelines do not bring us everything we want. I had some sight over a previous draft version in the last Government. Thankfully it did not see the light of day because it was an absolute disaster. I share the opinions of my colleague, Senator Flaherty, in relation to the qualification. I think the qualification is there in the national planning framework for social and economic need in areas under population pressure - they all qualify. Getting from qualification to planning permission is the problem. The word that has been used all the time is "inconsistency" and the lack of consistency. It is not just across different counties; it is actually within counties themselves. There will be inconsistencies in planning decisions. When you look at the qualification, then you look at landscape and at landscape characterisation. Then you look at whether it is family-owned land or land bought to buy a house. They all have impacts on a decision. The next one is traffic and then environment.

I want to focus on the lack of consistency within the pre-planning process. I could walk into Wexford tomorrow morning and sit down with a planner and discuss my planning application. In Wicklow, I will submit an email and get sent a link to a document. I think we need consistency so rural people can sit down with a planner and go through everything they need to go through, namely, qualification, landscape, transport and environment, so that they know what they are getting into.

I would like to speak about ribbon development and backland development. I do not understand ribbon development in a rural setting because you are creating an urban form of development in a rural setting. When you have five houses in a row, all equally backed 20 m from the roadside, it is like an urban landscape. Backland development is one of the greatest opportunities we have to locate rural houses which are not visible from the roadside. In my first six years in Wicklow County Council as a councillor, I never heard of an issue with backland development. All of a sudden, out of fecking nowhere - excuse the language - backland development became an issue, and any house that was in the backland was not permitted. I do not know where it came from. There are great opportunities for planned proper backland development that will actually hide our rural housing and not have any impact on the landscape.

I am trying to hit on a few things because this is a broad issue.

On that understanding of the complexities and inconsistencies, I can give several examples in Wicklow of planning permission decisions on the same day. One was a traditional house and the one beside it was elevated and a dormer. The traditional house was refused and the dormer was granted. It just did not make sense to the two people I had to ring. How did the others get it and they did not? There has to be some consistency. Not all of it should come from the national level. Our councillors have a role to play. Economic need in each county could be completely different. What economic need is should not be from a high level or national level. Flexibility is needed.

I will mention what nobody has mentioned yet, namely, the power of section 140 that was taken away from our councillors. I mention that, not because I want to be nasty but because it was the only implement councillors had, when trying to negotiate with planners, which they could use as leverage to say a specific house should get planning permission. That power has been taken away from our councillors. I have used it on a few occasions for what I felt was genuine rural people building houses on their own land who were being refused because of some little technicality. The councillors have lost the use of that power, even as leverage. Something needs to come back to give councillors recognition of the work they do and give them some leverage so they can insist that a planner listens to them, because there are genuine rural people not getting planning while there are people using the system who do not qualify and are getting it.

Senators Scahill and Kennelly are sharing time. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The Minister of State is welcome once again to the Chamber. I reiterate the welcome so many of the previous speakers have given, including Senators Flaherty and McCormack, for these guidelines. We are happy to see them. We see the Minister of State addressing what we have all looked for. Well done on that. This is building on the success of the croí cónaithe and vacant property refurbishment schemes. In my county of Roscommon, at the end of 2025 there were 459 applications, 325 approvals and 119 homes brought back into use, with an investment of, I think, €6.8 million, bringing those old buildings back to life. Many of the previous speakers referred to consistency. The Minister of State also mentioned it. If we can get consistency and transparency in decisions and know we have a good chance of achieving it before we put it in, that is effectively all a public representative wants - to be able to support the applicant to deliver on this.

The GAA demographics strategy was mentioned earlier. Many rural clubs are seeing depopulation which means they are struggling to field teams, get volunteers and remain viable. In Roscommon this week, we had news of two rural national schools closing, Drumboylan National School and Slatta National School. The INTO told us this morning that there are 11 other rural national schools in the west in the same position. Predominantly, this is because people are not given the opportunities to build houses where they want. As a previous speaker said, we want local people to be able to build their own houses close to their family in their local areas. That is what the guidelines do.

To go back to simplicity, one of my colleagues in Roscommon County Council, Councillor Ruth Conboy, has repeatedly asked for transparency and far more information in relation to planning decisions, such as details on planning applications, approvals and refusals, but also, whenever a local authority requests further information, where that goes. She does not want this information buried in management reports. Every local authority should have this on their site and should be held accountable by this information. I would love to go into wastewater treatment, EPA codes, section 1.3 and the domestic wastewater treatment grants system. I believe new guidelines are coming out for some of the local authorities on that. That is holding up a lot of decisions in my area. If that could be speeded up, it would be brilliant.

I welcome the Minister of State and I acknowledge the work that has been done. This is reform. It is the best thing that has happened. We have had a housing issue in this country for the past number of years. I congratulate the Minister of State on the work he has been doing in this Government. With all the toing and froing, this is welcome news. Most importantly, Kerry, which I proudly represent, was said to be, even today, and I circulated this recently, the third best county to live in. It reflects the very strong communities we are building at the moment. Last year, construction was begun on only 297 homes in Kerry, but between January and April 2026, over 400 commencement notices were issued. That is something that is working and that has to be acknowledged.

However we have serious other constraints in sustaining rural communities. I spent over 16 years as a councillor in Kerry and planning was always a very serious issue when the son or daughter could not built next to mom and dad. There was a big difference between some councils. In Kerry, it was no bother if we had the son or daughter or the nephew or niece, but if you owned a farm along the national routes into Kerry, and your son or daughter wanted to inherit and work that farm, they could not build a house on it due to constraints from TII. That has to be in the guidelines. I hope it will be reviewed again before the guidelines come out and there is an agreement with TII.

On the GAA, I am from Kerry and depopulation is killing it, especially in villages. If we do not bring Uisce Éireann to every county council and local authority, then this will continue. It did not invest for years. I could go on.

There are five speakers left and we are almost out of time.

If I could be allowed to come back in again.

The Minister of State has to go. I will give each of the remaining speakers a minute and half if that is okay. It is eating into the Minister of State's time. We were late starting, so perhaps the Minister of State could stay for an extra few minutes by agreement of the House. Is it in agreement with the Minister of State that we take an extra ten minutes? Agreed. I will give the five remaining speakers two minutes each, with the agreement of the House. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, my Déise colleague, is just gone out the door. Knowing him for many years, he has always been a very proactive public representative. I am not a bit surprised that he engineered and drove these changes. I welcome them. Well done to him and his team in the Custom House.

This morning, as Senator Scahill mentioned, we were over with the INTO. It signalled to us a great demise of local schools. The numbers are quite frightening. Only this week one was flagged in Waterford, Knockmahon, in the vicinity of Bunmahon. A lot of that is concomitant with the rigours of the planning system. Everybody here who has been a councillor, and maybe indeed many who have not, will have found that there are difficulties in this business of building on the land, on the holding. It is great to see there is some leniency coming into that because we will lose our schools. As Senator Kennelly said, there will be the decimation of the GAA and other things that are very much part of the rich rural landscape and environment we have.

These changes are very welcomed by me and, I sense, by the rest of the House.

It is a serious wedge made in that difficulty that we have had over the years with the Planning Regulator, the lack of consistency and all of those daft things that impacted on our lives as councillors trying to get something that was reasonable. Back in the day, we used to talk in the ranganna Gaeilge about banú na tuaithe. We had the same thing in Scotland between 1750 and 1850 where the clearances took place. Effectively, we were engineering our own clearances. We were not using the landlords to do it at all. We should be delighted that we have an antidote to it now.

I did take my two minutes, go raibh maith agaibh.

I welcome the Minister of State and I will get straight to it. I have two points to make. As someone with a civil engineering background who used to draw up plans, the first issue I wish to raise is in relation to national secondary routes. I believe they should not be dealt with in the same manner as national primaries, particularly those that have a low annual daily traffic volume. Regional roads that have high traffic volumes need to be looked at in relation to this set of guidelines. We should take a rough average of perhaps the top 20 and get a figure for the annualised average daily traffic from those. Then, whenever we go below that volume on a national secondary, we should start allowing some opening of the planning system to areas of low traffic volume and with fewer road safety difficulties, such as large portions of the N56 in Donegal, the N59 across Sligo, Mayo and into Galway, and many more examples across the country. It is a simple thing to do but it would be massively helpful to many rural parts of Ireland that are suffering decline and where people cannot get planning for themselves and their families, and businesses alike.

The second issue is a simple matter in relation to planning when it comes to dealing with effluent from the average house. Currently, planners make a decision based on a design that is given by an architect. That architect is trusted with the build of that house but the planning decider can turn around and say they do not accept that design for the effluent system. That is wrong. The architects are trusted to build the house; they should be trusted to put in the system that is designed. If they do not, it is on them. The architect is responsible for that house build. They also should be responsible for the septic tank. It is a simple measure. If we could trust the architects for that, we should be able to trust them to put in the proper system as well.

I would love to have about 20 minutes on this. I welcome this debate very much. I hope Minister of State is listening to the suggestions because this is a big bugbear of mine. Good suggestions have been made here today, but I do not see anybody taking notes and that bugs me too. We have harsh planning restrictions that have been a plague on rural communities, so I am delighted to see that the Government is finally listening to what we have been saying for years.

We need to be careful about the rules, particularly local needs rules, being relaxed so much that rural house prices are pushed up. That is what happened in the Celtic tiger era. I know it is houses but I would be afraid that if we relaxed the local needs rules in respect of planning, the same would happen again. I live in the town of Bailieborough. It is within the commuter belt of Dublin and lots of Dublin people sold their houses, came down and priced young couples out of the market in my town. I would be afraid of that happening again and would want to mitigate against that.

I truly believe that local authorities and councillors are best placed to understand the needs of their own areas but that they are operating within very strict guidelines and their hands are tied. There is a top-down approach from the Government and the Planning Regulator. Ireland has one of the most centralised governments in Europe and we all know that. We should trust our local authorities more and devolve more power to them. Everywhere is different and a one-size policy cannot fit everywhere. In west Cavan, we have very bad depopulation. In east Cavan, we have a very high population. Councils are best equipped to deal with these differences in population and spread.

I am a big believer that strategies should place an emphasis on serviced sites. I see it happening in Canada. My sons live in Canada and the local authority buys or has a plot of land and develops it into lots. The services are there, such as electricity and water. It is so easy then for people to go in and build on these serviced sites. They are-----

Go raibh maith agat. I am sorry, we are out of time.

-----a brilliant idea on the edge of towns. I have loads more-----

I thank Senator O'Reilly.

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, for being here. I also thank him and the Minister, Deputy Browne, for listening to those of us at many different parliamentary party meetings who have brought up this issue and feel very passionately that change is needed. It is not just about change, but also balance and consistency. While we believe that rural housing should be a part of addressing the housing crisis, unfortunately, there are many local authorities that feel differently about it, so there is no consistency across the country. We need change.

We understand that there have to be concerns about the environment. That needs to be taken on board, and nobody thinks any differently. However, there are consequences to the over-regulation of planning, which we are seeing happen at the moment. Families are unable to build on their own land. Young people are forced to leave their communities. There are schools losing students and GAA teams not being able to field players. There are all of these reasons. Farm succession is becoming harder and, of course, there is the intergenerational aspect where we need to have different generations living close together to support one another. Grandparents can be supported as they grow older and grandparents can help with children as they are born to the next generation.

We need more flexibility. We need to encourage more sustainable building networks. We need to reduce the pressure on the urban housing markets. That pressure is happening because the rural areas are being ignored. The greatest threat to rural Ireland is depopulation, not development. People who grow up in rural Ireland, who volunteer in their community and send their children to school should have the right to live in their own area of choice beside their friends and families. I know that the Ministers of State, Deputies O'Sullivan and Cummins, and the Minister, Deputy Browne, are working on a new statement. It would be good to get an update on where we are at now. Timing is everything and there is a level of impatience about when we can see that.

I welcome to the Gallery guests of Deputy Cathal Crowe from Clare. He has guests from Scariff Bay Community Radio with him. Before I call the next speaker, Senator O'Donovan, I welcome members of Carbery Macra from west Cork, who are his guests. It is an opportune time, as we are having a debate on rural planning.

It certainly is an opportune time for Carbery Macra to be in the Chamber. It is opportune that the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, is also in attendance. After 18 months in his position, I think it is first time that I have addressed him in the Chamber, so I would like to congratulate him on his appointment last year to the position of Minister of State. What an honour it is for him personally and for his family across west Cork. It is very fitting that Carbery Macra would be here.

We are discussing rural planning, which is probably one of the most important subjects - the Minister of State would agree on this - that we deal with on a daily basis for the next generation so that they can live rurally in west Cork and many other rural parts of our country. I speak on planning from a unique perspective as someone who has been in politics, stepped away from politics and then moved back. I have seen the planning process and system becoming more difficult. It genuinely has got more difficult in the last number of years. We came out of a crash in the late noughties into 2011 and 2012 and our planning system became more difficult. Whether it was ribbon development, local assessments, local needs and local applicants having difficulty applying and going through the process or the removal of planning liaison officers such as people like James Keane on Cork County Council, the barometer moved to a place where it has become difficult.

When I explain the importance of politics to people, it is about the grey areas where policy does not work. Planning policy at the moment does not work. I welcome the work of the Minister of State and that of the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, and their engagement with the local authorities, going around and seeing how we can make things better.

We had the GAA before the committee this morning. It is quite stark when we look at the figures for depopulation. Our schools, our churches, our pubs and our community centres need people living in local areas. We need to see consistencies brought into the planning process. To make a constructive suggestion, we see local authorities engaging with community groups, going out with roadshows and rolling out information evenings across our communities.

That needs to be done with agents and planners and those professionals who help people applying for planning, because there needs to be consistency. The new planning guidelines that are going to be announced need to be communicated clearly to agents. That is something constructive that could be rolled out across the country. Well done to the Minister of State for his work on this.

I welcome two guests of the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, who are in the Gallery. I understand people from Scarriff Bay Community Radio are also here, with Deputy Cooney. You are very welcome too.

I thank the Minister of State for being here. As many of my colleagues have said, it is not necessarily about housing but about whether rural communities can survive and whether rural towns, villages, etc., can have a future. I am on the housing committee and over the last number of weeks we have had the GAA in. Its representatives were saying it is impossible to get players for towns throughout Ireland. We are all agreed we need more homes but we need balanced regional development and then rural Ireland will benefit from that growth. There are too many young people who want to stay in their communities but cannot rent, cannot buy and in some cases cannot build. I live in rural Kildare and trying to get planning permission, even on the farm I have, is difficult. Recently we had residents of the Gaeltacht in and we heard from them how, while the Government is committed to protecting the Irish language, many of them cannot get planning permission to live in their own community, so it seems the Government’s policy on protecting the Irish language and its policy on housing and planning are contradicting each other. People who own heritage properties were saying the Government has a wonderful plan on maintaining and restoring properties, which is fantastic, but a lot of them feel their experience shows it is impossible to maintain those properties. Good policies, it seems, can sometimes end up working against each other on the ground.

Rural communities have the capacity to grow. There are serviced lands, vacant buildings and underutilised sites all around Ireland, and vacancy and dereliction grants have been wonderful. They have kicked the ball out of the park regarding success, but grants alone are not enough. The biggest barriers remain infrastructure and planning, and villages cannot grow unless we get infrastructure sorted out. The heart of this is giving people an opportunity to live, work and raise a family in their own communities.

The Minister of State is very welcome to the House, as the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, was as well. The message has been received loud and clear by Government that there are too many inconsistencies between counties. Having been in public life for over 20 years, I have dealt with many tricky and difficult planning decisions and, by and large, planners do the right thing and do the best they possibly can by clients, but sometimes regulations and requirements do not make sense. I welcome that the guidelines are going out to public consultation. I agree with Senator Boyhan that they need to go out for detailed consideration and public consultation. I sincerely hope that what comes back is taken on board by Government. The present Minister of State, who, like the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, comes from rural Ireland, will understand exactly the challenges there are and the various inconsistencies we have all experienced. We need to remove those inconsistencies because there is nothing as frustrating for members of the public as seeing a decision made, even in a different electoral area in a county, that differs from a decision they have been given, whatever about differences between counties. We need to see consistency across counties and consistency across planners and similar interpretations by planners. The only way that can happen is by proper regulation at Government level. I wish the Minister of State well and look forward to this process escalating.

I thank everybody for their contributions. I was not taking notes but I was taking mental notes and listening to it all. Fortunately, it is all recorded so we can watch it back.

I thank Senators for giving me the opportunity to discuss rural planning, further to the important discussions on this topic in the House today. The draft national planning statement is being prepared and will provide more clarity and certainty to those engaging with the planning system and seeking to build a new rural dwelling. The importance of delivering on the needs of rural communities is acknowledged, especially through the supply of housing that meets the need of people who can demonstrate they have a local housing need to live or work in that rural area, based on economic or social considerations. Nationally, rural housing continues to be an important component of overall new housing delivery, with about 4,000 or 5,000 new rural dwellings being built annually. The Government is progressing a range of planning and housing actions contained within its housing action plan that will support the delivery of housing across the country. An example of this is the launch of the housing infrastructure investment fund by the housing activation office. This provides significant investment in social and affordable housing along with funding schemes to support the reuse of vacant and derelict properties.

My Department is also working with Uisce Éireann and local authorities to address water and wastewater infrastructure needs in rural areas, including Gaeltacht communities. Investment through the rural water programme helps support safe drinking water, improved wastewater services and the delivery of housing in these areas. These measures help ensure essential infrastructure keeps pace with housing needs and supports long-term community resilience. The national planning framework complements and builds on existing Government policy set out in Our Rural Future: Rural Development Policy 2021-2025 and Our Living Islands: National Islands Policy 2023-2033. In recognising the unique characteristics of our island communities, which include Gaeltacht islands, a number of measures have been implemented through the our living islands policy. These include subsidised cargo ferry services to offshore islands to support the carriage of construction machinery and materials, and funding for community development companies and capital investment in community infrastructure on islands. In addition, enhanced support under the vacant property refurbishment grant is available to assist the refurbishment of vacant and derelict properties on qualifying islands to help bring them back into use as homes. The maximum grant amount is 20% higher in recognition of the additional costs involved in construction on offshore islands. Up to €60,000, compared with €50,000 on the mainland, is available for refurbishing vacant properties, with up to €84,000, compared with €70,000 on the mainland, where the property is derelict. Officials within my Department also continue to work closely with officials in the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, local authorities and Údarás na Gaeltachta in supporting the provision of housing and infrastructure in Gaeltacht communities.

That is the gist of it. Obviously in today's statements we could not go into in-depth detail about what may be in the draft national planning statement, but that draft will emerge very shortly. The Minister, the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, and I have been working on this to ensure the input is appropriate. There is a stated aim. The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, mentioned that, in a rural area suffering persistent and substantial population decline, the policy is to accommodate anyone who is looking to build a house. I want to focus on the word "accommodate". That is exactly what we need to do when it comes to planning in rural areas. We need to accommodate people rather than blocking them and putting obstacles in their way. It is essential. Take a newly married couple who, perhaps, have just had a child and are applying for planning permission. We cannot have a situation where that couple are contacting Senators' offices and crying down the phone because they have been refused for the third or fourth time. We have all seen at first hand the cost, the distress and the emotional impact of something like that. If we are successful with this planning statement, that success will look like not having those types of situations. It will mean connection to an area does not mean you have to have been born in the field where the site is, or maybe the field next to it, or in that postcode but rather the community you are part of, that you grew up in, played sports in, went to school in and worked in. We need clarity and flexibility when it comes to interpreting that. It means if you have a bit of a landholding and there are a number of sites, you are not expecting to get permission to build on the top of the tallest hill there but we cannot be sending people down to the lowest, darkest, deepest hole either.

That is what success looks like if we get this national planning statement right. It means that there is flexibility. At the end of the day, the applicants are going to be living in this house for the rest of their lives. Acknowledging the fact that it is the applicants who are going to be living in these homes, they should have more of an input into design. All too often we see situations where people had their dream home but perhaps it is out of character with the landscape. There has to be reason there as well because at the end of the day, it is the applicants who are going to be living there and they have to be happy with the house that has been designed.

Another issues is where the applicant is already living on a road, perhaps with their parents, and using that road but they are being turned down because of road traffic safety concerns. These are the issues that this national planning statement provides us with an opportunity to provide clarity on. Working with the Minister, Deputy Browne, and the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, that is the direction of travel. We want to ensure clarity and consistency and that we accommodate. Let that be the key word, that we accommodate applicants rather than put up barriers.

I will touch now on the islands, which I referenced in my speech. The islands are different. We talk about school depopulation and the fear of the closure of schools. On islands in particular, that is a real and acute concern. Cape Clear is a Gaeltacht island in west Cork. It is one of the most beautiful places one will ever visit and I urge Senators to go there but the school is just barely hanging on. They had a very innovative idea known as gateway housing, which was trialled in the Hebrides in Scotland, whereby the islanders, the comharchumann, or the community, were allowed to build four to six houses to allow people to try out island life for a while and if they liked it, they stayed. Future populations would then keep the businesses and the schools going. That is something I would love to see reflected in this as well.

The details will emerge shortly but this is one of the greatest hopes and chances we have ever had to ease the burden, stress and strain, not just on young people but on people of all ages and backgrounds and allow them to live in their area or an area to which they have a connection, whether that is where they work or live or where they were born. I thank all Senators for their comments which were very helpful. What is clear is that we have all had very similar experiences and this is a chance to fix that.

I would like to welcome guests of Deputy Albert Dolan from Mountbellew National School. You are very welcome here this afternoon. Just to say, you will have no homework for the rest of the week. It is customary here in the Seanad to relieve students of homework. Enjoy your visit.