Richard O'Donoghue: Calls for infrastructure fixes as 42 houses delayed
Richard O'Donoghue addressed housing delays caused by infrastructure and administrative hold-ups, citing 42 houses delayed in Palace Henry and 60 in Croom. He urged the minister and local authorities to resolve storage-system capacity issues, improve communication, and reconsider rules for one-off and secondary rural homes.
Immediate housing delays
He said 42 houses in Palace Henry are being held up by a storage-system capacity issue and described an A4 page update as all that is needed to clear the delay. He told ministers the draft was ready but expired and that a simple date change and re-issue would remove the current hold-up.
Croom and handover problems
Mr O'Donoghue cited a separate delay in Croom where 60 houses were held up for six months, pointing to issues involving Ishgarden and local authority handovers. He said some delays arose because local authorities did not recognise existing commitments made to builders before handing material over, describing the problem as a lack of communication.
Infrastructure and one-off rural homes
He argued infrastructure is essential to building houses and defended the right of people to build one-off homes where they grew up if there is adequate land, road frontage, visibility and percolation area. He proposed allowing a second house on the same property up to "40 square feet" — which he then referred to as "400 square feet, 40 square metres" — and said rural homeowners should be able to build a little bigger on a half-acre site compared with dense town plots.
Call for streamlined processes and return home incentives
He told the minister that frameworks alone are insufficient without the necessary infrastructure and clearer, faster administrative action. He emphasised that enabling people to build their own houses is low cost to the state and would help invite people to return to their home areas.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Thank you, Colin. I would like to acknowledge Richard Hurley in the gallery, and his friend Paul Lennon as well. Welcome to the door. Minister, we can do all the frameworks with all the best of intentions, but unless you have the infrastructure, you can build nothing. I am just going to give you a small application at the moment. 42 houses to be built in Palace Henry, an A4 page, and I could ask for your help for this one, an A4 page to say that there is capacity in the storage system is delaying 42 houses to be built in Palace Henry at the moment. I have been on to our local county council, and the executive met with British Cairn, and they said, yeah, we will look into it. If it takes them a month to look into an A4 page, which I sent them the last draft of, they sent the last one, but it expired, they just have to change the date on it and send it back, and it is holding up 42 houses. How are we going to build houses for people if there is this type of delays? Croom is the same thing again, Minister. Infrastructure is key if you want to build houses. Six months, 60 houses were held up in Croom due to Ishgarden again. But it wasn't all their fault, because the local authorities, when they handed over stuff to Ishgarden, delayed because they didn't realise they had commitments given to people for building houses before they handed it over. So, lack of communication. People building their one-off houses in Ireland, everyone should have a right to live where they grew up. If there is adequate land, if there is adequate road frontage, visibility and percolation area, they should be allowed to build. You can go in to a town and you can put 15 houses into a half an acre. But if somebody wants to build a house in the county, it is a half an acre, is what they are saying. We want then people, with the guidelines I have just said now, that they can build a second house up to 40 square feet on the same property. 400 square feet, 40 square metres, on the same property, if somebody wanted a downside. If somebody was in a family and they wanted a downside, 400 square feet is only 20 foot square. We should be allowed to build something a little bit bigger on a half acre site, especially if you can build 15 or 16 houses. In an area, in a town, a city or a village, you can build 16 houses. But in the county, you are saying we can only build one and maybe put in 400 square feet as well after that. We need to look at these people to make sure that we can actually invite our people to come home and make sure that if they want to build their own houses, which is no cost to the state, and put a roof over their own heads. Thank you.
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
