Danny Healy-Rae criticises planning rules blocking rural homes

I'm glad to get the opportunity. First of all, I want to thank Deputy Donovan and I'm absolutely delighted that you're taking the questions today because, as you know yourself, we haven't always agreed about everything, but I do agree that when you come back, you take the question, you come back and you give an answer. And I hope that on top of all the other times that I've asked these same questions, that something will happen now. We have a class in Kerry known as the rural areas under significant urban influence, which I understand was to prevent applicants coming out from towns or urban settings, but is now actually preventing local people, local to their site, even applying, just preventing them from getting planning permission. Many times I have asked here that the restriction preventing family members takes it onto national primary and secondary roads, even where there is already an existing exit entrance serving many other users. The problem is, if this was just an ordinary local road, there'd be no problem. But the very same type of road that was never taken in charge by the local authority is being deprived of getting planning in much the same scenarios. This change was signed into law in 2012 by Leo Bradker, a former leader here in the house, and then the minister for that, who later agreed with me here in this chamber that a total ban was very wrong. And what I'm asking for is, that it'd be given back to the engineers, the local engineers, to decide if the exit is safe, and if the site distance is of the right standard. There's a lot to talk about. There's a lot to talk about affordable homes, and we never had any one of these schemes in Kerry. I can't understand why. And anyway, I don't really know, I can't understand how you can call one house, an affordable house, when the house beside it costs the standard price, same size, everything, to build. Surely, surely, to be able to call a house, an affordable one, the materials of the labour cost, or the planning cost, should be costless. I want to remind you that 40% of the cost of building any house today is VAT, taxes, planning, and levies. Could the government reduce the cost of the VAT? There's no VAT on building materials in the UK. I think the people are not actually being taught the truth about these affordable schemes. We have had the Taoiseach many times saying that we need to zone more land for housing. However, on many occasions, when elected members in Kerry and management agreed to zone more, the regulators stepped in and blocked them, even though these lands were serviced. What's going to happen now, whether builders could use the government's new proposal to build treatment plans on non-serviced land? Just let me finish this. On non-serviced land, could we say that these don't need to be zoned, only to be decided by a planning application? Because many of these places know that the government is saying that developers could build the treatment plans. They're not even zoned for housing. So this is going to hold all that up again. When the government proposed to exempt planning permission for the granny flats. The time has expired, and I just move on if you don't allow the Minister to respond. Thanks, Laskin Corolla, and thanks, Deputy Healy-Rae, for raising this. Just at the outset, there's more times that we agree on things and disagree, so especially as a neighbour's child, I'd like you to think that. But on this one, I agree with you, because if you travel the road from Abbeyfield to Doua, and I'm sure you know that road very well, and there's part of that road where there's, in Kerry, where there is a very well-developed group of houses, where there's a single entrance out onto a regional road. It's not a national primary or national secondary road, but it's a regional road. And there's no intensification then, or turning movements. It's what the roads engineer in Kerry County Council would tell you, because this is what they tell me in Limerick, that wherever there's intensification on a road and turning movements, they're worried about people being rear-ended and having crashes and things like that, and fatality issues. And I can understand that, and where there is a safety issue on a road, we have to be very conscious of it. But where there is no apparent reason for a person being denied planning permission, particularly if it's on their own land, and, for instance, if they have rented an apartment in Tralee, or they have rented an apartment in Killarney, and they want to move back to Tarbert, or Myvan, or wherever else, I think it should be very clear in the County Development Plan's policy, in the first instance, that that's something that should be encouraged. There was a report two weeks ago with regard to the issue and a responsibility for it around sports clubs in South Kerry, particularly in the Evere Peninsula, and depopulation, and the demographic changes in the GEA, and we're going to have to address it. Like, there isn't going to be a sewerage scheme at every four crossroads in the country, but if developers are allowed to bring in their own type of solutions, where there's a small scheme under the supervision of the local authority, and where they can discharge to surface water with a licence from Kerry County Council, or Limerick County Council, I don't see why that can't be allowed. And you wouldn't have the situation, then, where we have seen it in Renard and other places, where they have to amalgamate GEA clubs just to put out an under-16 team, and yet the population of County Kerry has gone up dramatically. But it's gone up in places like Tralee, and Killarney, and Kinmere, and the main population bases. And if we're to sustain a rural life in counties like ours, the first thing that you have to be able to do is flush the toilet. Because unless you can flush the toilet, you can't build a house. Like, you can't pollute the surface water, and you can't have runoff going into dikes. But there are solutions there. And I think rather than being told at a pre-planning meeting, as I'm often told, and I'm sure you are too, that there's no proper solution, or there's no way around this, that soil is too heavy, and you can't possibly sustain a proprietary treatment system, or a septic tank, or a biocycle. I think we need to start looking at engineering solutions, where if a developer comes in, like that development that I referred to there a while ago between Abbeyfield and Douan, that if there is a technical solution to be able to deal with sewerage and effluent properly, under licence and inspection by the local authority, I don't see why we can't do that. Because the future of our GA clubs and our small schools is going to be utterly dependent on the fact that if we can't build houses in those areas, and it's not out of a desire of people not being able to afford it, a lot of these are returning sons and daughters who want to live in South Kerry or East Limerick, but the restrictions that are there, and I agree with you, they're going to have to be looked at. Thanks, Minister. Deputy Healy-Rae. Thank you very much, Minister. The mayor has been staff of private housing schemes for almost 20 years. Firstly, because we had an adequate treatment plant. £40 million has been spent in that now, and it's fully operational. Now we're being told that the water supply is not adequate. Now I've raised this year and said before, and in the last number of weeks, and I want to know what the answer is. I ask again here, however, though, that the government liaise with Irish Water and ensure that the two current planning applications of up to 170 houses that are now in limbo are not refused because of the shortage of water. There's another thing, Minister, that I'd like to ask. Back in the late 70s and 80s, people got 3,500 to build houses less than 1,350 square feet. Could we bring forward a similar type of scheme to decrease the house sizes to maybe 1,750 square feet? Because many people are building houses much too big than they can afford. And the cost is so... So I'm asking as well for a new grant of €20,000 on top of whatever is there before for houses built under that size. I think there's merit in that. And I'll just ask... We do four bins, Les Concorla. Kerry County Council are building no rural cottages now. They're building hardly any houses at all. And they were doing great work. People got built a house built on their lands. And when they got on their feet, they purchased them out, they bought them out there. That's not happening at all. Thanks very much, Minister. Thank you, Les Concorla. Thanks, Les Concorla. And the same happened in Limerick. And the same happened in Waterford and everywhere else. Where the local authorities built what were called the council cottages. In many cases, they were on farms. You gave the council a half an acre or an acre. And that land was transferred to the council. In return, they built the house and you rented it. And then you got the option to buy it back if you were a farmer. Or if you weren't a farmer, the council acquired a site for you. That's a matter for the council. If the councils want to do that, Deputy Healy Ray, there's no reason they can't. The most important thing that they have to do is be able to go back a while ago and be able to put in a proprietary treatment system that will pass a percolation test. But I agree with you with regard to the issue in relation to what you said about younger people especially wanting to move back into their own area. And there is a narrative out there that if you're building a one-off house, you're somehow polluting the area. We're not. Like, we grew up in houses. And I know exactly the type of houses that you're talking about. There were the grants that were given in the 1970s and the 80s under certain square footage. Half of the country were rarer than them. And they didn't do, you know, and you're absolutely right. Some of the houses that have been built at the moment, to be honest about it, they're far too big in terms of the energy consumption as well. So, Minister Cummins will be back. I know he's on paternity leave at the moment with regard to the issue that you raised about the extensions to the rear of the houses and the separate units. And I'll get him to reply directly to it. But a lot of the issues that are raised here are matters that need to be contained as well in the county development plans of the respective county councils. And they're also matters for government. Thank you. Thanks, Deputy Healy. Yes. You're welcome, yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.