Nolan calls for publication of revised planning guidelines for rural houses

Independent TD for Offaly Carol Nolan has said the delay in publishing updated planning guidelines for rural houses is now entering “the realm of the absurd.”

Deputy Nolan was speaking after submitting a parliamentary question on the matter to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage James Browne.

Minister Browne confirmed to her in a parliamentary reply that the Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines in 2005 continue to have effect in addition to subsequent clarifications and national policy changes in the National Planning Framework.

However, the minister also indicated that while planning policy is a national, as opposed to an EU competence, “due care is being taken to ensure the updated guidelines will not operate to conflict with fundamental EU freedoms, comply with EU environmental legislative requirements and have due regard to decisions of the European Court of Justice”.

“We all know that the existing rural planning guidelines are not fit for purpose and new framework which actively supports, rather than obstructs the choices rural people make with respect to their housing are urgently needed.

“Yet here we are, two decades on from the publication of the Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines in 2005 and the situation is as bad as ever for families trying to build a home in rural Ireland, and with no indication as to when that will change.

“I am also deeply concerned about the excessive level of deference that the minister gave to the EU perspective and EU agenda in his reply. Housing as he rightly points out is a national competence, but that is effectively undermined if we continue to allow our policy to remain subject to a form of EU inspired regulatory paralysis.

“We need the revised guidelines published as soon as possible so that we can constructively engage with any new framework that it will propose,” Deputy Nolan SAID.