Rural Planning: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-10 ============================================================ Cathal Byrne (FG), Cultural and Educational Panel 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. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-10/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:02+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-10