Rural Planning: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-10 ============================================================ Noel O'Donovan (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach It certainly is an opportune time for Carbery Macra to be in the Chamber. It is opportune that the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, is also in attendance. After 18 months in his position, I think it is first time that I have addressed him in the Chamber, so I would like to congratulate him on his appointment last year to the position of Minister of State. What an honour it is for him personally and for his family across west Cork. It is very fitting that Carbery Macra would be here. We are discussing rural planning, which is probably one of the most important subjects - the Minister of State would agree on this - that we deal with on a daily basis for the next generation so that they can live rurally in west Cork and many other rural parts of our country. I speak on planning from a unique perspective as someone who has been in politics, stepped away from politics and then moved back. I have seen the planning process and system becoming more difficult. It genuinely has got more difficult in the last number of years. We came out of a crash in the late noughties into 2011 and 2012 and our planning system became more difficult. Whether it was ribbon development, local assessments, local needs and local applicants having difficulty applying and going through the process or the removal of planning liaison officers such as people like James Keane on Cork County Council, the barometer moved to a place where it has become difficult. When I explain the importance of politics to people, it is about the grey areas where policy does not work. Planning policy at the moment does not work. I welcome the work of the Minister of State and that of the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, and their engagement with the local authorities, going around and seeing how we can make things better. We had the GAA before the committee this morning. It is quite stark when we look at the figures for depopulation. Our schools, our churches, our pubs and our community centres need people living in local areas. We need to see consistencies brought into the planning process. To make a constructive suggestion, we see local authorities engaging with community groups, going out with roadshows and rolling out information evenings across our communities. That needs to be done with agents and planners and those professionals who help people applying for planning, because there needs to be consistency. The new planning guidelines that are going to be announced need to be communicated clearly to agents. That is something constructive that could be rolled out across the country. Well done to the Minister of State for his work on this. --- 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