Éamon Ó Cuív warns rural policy neglects remote communities
Éamon Ó Cuív spoke about the challenges facing remote rural Ireland, arguing that recent rural policy and planning guidelines favour larger towns and harm more isolated communities. He called for a return to a proper rural planning framework, praised Minister Dara O'Brien's willingness to listen, and highlighted urgent needs on water and roads.
Rural decline and community impact
The speaker contrasted growing rural areas near towns with rapidly declining rural areas away from towns, warning that remote communities face school closures and struggling GA clubs. He said many places are in danger of losing community life because it has become impossible to sustain clubs and field teams.
Planning policy and one-off houses
He argued that planning policy is working against the traditional rural settlement pattern in Ireland, making it practically impossible in scenic areas to build a house for a family. He said the establishment of academics and administrators has imposed inappropriate rules, that these houses are part of dispersed rural villages rather than isolated one-off homes, and that current rural housing guidelines risk taking the country backwards; he applauded the willingness of Minister Dara O'Brien to listen and urged a reset to the rural planning framework.
Water access and connection costs
The speaker noted that about 10% of rural houses still rely on private wells or private water sources and criticised the cost of joining public schemes. He said attempts to connect to a Irish water scheme carry a 300 euro per metre charge, calling it scandalous, and advocated for a nationwide scheme - modelled on the rural broadband rollout - to bring public-quality water to every house.
Roads and rural infrastructure
He urged upgrades to rural roads to a minimum standard so they are safe for vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians, saying many rural roads are totally inadequate and deter walking. He warned that some government members underestimate the importance of road improvements for rural life.
Limits of the debate
He expressed regret that the debate was so short, saying three minutes is insufficient to address even a fraction of the issues facing rural Ireland.
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The first thing we have to recognise is that there are growing rural areas near the towns but there are still rapidly declining rural areas away from the towns and rural policy in recent years seems to be focused more on large towns than it is on the really more remote, more challenging rural areas and all you have to do is talk to the GA clubs, talk to the local schools and you see that they are in danger in some places of the schools closing completely in other cases it is impossible to put a team together and we need to recognise the challenges and we need to deal with it and the first challenge that we get is that planning policy is totally against the traditional rural settlement of rural Ireland and the establishment made up of academics and administrators seem hell-bent in making it practically impossible particularly in more scenic rural areas to build a house for your family and these are not one-off houses I have never seen a one-off house I have seen houses in dispersed rural villages but not a one-off rural house because they are all part of a community and Ireland were the backbone of many rural communities in Ireland what seems to be happening is they are trying to impose planning policies from Europe with a different settlement history to Ireland and I have to say I applaud the willingness of Minister Dara O'Brien to listen on this issue and to take action accordingly I am not hopeful at all that if they proceed with the rural housing guidelines as were proposed and as I heard them to be that we'd be going forward in fact I think we're going backwards and we need to start back at the rural planning framework which is where the fundamental initial problem lies and build on that and get proper rural housing guidelines unfortunately there's not enough time here to speak in the various issues there's one issue I would like to mention here this evening and that is that 10% of rural houses are still dependent and private sources wells or private sources of water for the water if you try to connect to a Irish water scheme they're charging you 300 euro a meter for a connection it's absolutely scandalous and what we need is a scheme like the rural broadband scheme that will bring water to every house in the country and ensure that everybody has access to good quality of public water the next issue I'd like to talk about is roads some members of the government seem to think that roads are on this way we need to upgrade our roads to a minimum standard so that they're safe for vehicles cyclists and cars and one of the reasons people do not walk on rural roads are because they're totally inadequate I have to just finally say I think it's a pity this debate is so short because in three minutes you cannot deal with even a 50th of the issues we need to deal with
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