Taoiseach: 'Not fair' to say there is no focus on rural housing
The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin has said that it is "not fair to say that there is no focus on housing in rural Ireland".
In the Dáil this week (June 18), Sinn Féin TD, Conor McGuinness asked the Taoiseach to acknowledge that "his housing policy is failing rural communities".
Deputy McGuinness said: "The housing crisis is not just an urban crisis. It is also tearing out the very heart of rural Ireland. Young people are being priced out or locked out.
"They are being pushed into the larger towns or cities or, more often than not, they are being pushed abroad."
"The national planning framework that the government pushed through the house actively promotes urban concentration at the expense of rural Ireland, deepening pressure on cities and depopulating the rest," the TD added.
According to Deputy McGuinness, the government's Our Rural Future strategy is silent on housing, and that there is only a "superficial" mention to it.
He claimed that "virtually" no affordable housing has been delivered in rural areas, and that in many towns and villages, no social home has been built in 30 years.
In response, the Taoiseach said that the government is focused on providing housing for rural Ireland.
The Taoiseach said: "On the housing front, it is not fair to say that there is no focus on housing in rural Ireland. There is.
"The derelict grants and the vacant grants have been particularly used in rural Ireland to great effect. I have seen places myself."
"It was because I was walking through rural Ireland that I said to Darragh O'Brien in the last government that we needed to develop such a derelict grant scheme, and it is having an impact.
"One can see it now in towns where houses have been refurbished and families have gone in to live in them," the Taoiseach added.
Separately, earlier this month (June 5), the Taoiseach warned that climate change is “threatening the sustainability of farm families”.
Speaking at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s (DAFM) Agriculture and Climate Change Conference in Dublin Castle, the Taoiseach highlighted the threat posed by climate change to the agriculture community.
He said: “The people in this room know better than most that climate change is not a distant threat, it is already changing the seasonal patterns that we have relied upon for millennia.
“Climate change is here and now, and it’s having an impact. More frequent and more intense storms, prolonged dry spells, unpredictable growing seasons, and increased disease pressures, are becoming the new normal," the Taoiseach added.
