New draft guidelines for rural and Gaeltacht housing are to be published in order to ease some restrictions around planning.
These proposals will be brought to the Cabinet by Minister for Housing, James Browne and Minister for State, John Cummins. This draft National Planning Statement is to provide more consistency with rural housing. It aims to allow for the building of more rural homes, as well as preventing urban sprawl, and regenerating rural towns and villages.
This statement is to help those who are seeking to build a home to demonstrate local need.
Currently, people are required to have lived in a rural area for up to seven years of their life, and their location must be close to their local area, usually between 3km and 10km.
Those living in Gaeltacht areas, people must live within 3km of the site, but there could be some flexibility here as they must have lived in the area for 10 years. But the requirement will be just five years for those who speak Irish.
The proposals are aimed at making life easier for those whose job depends on living in a rural area. It will cover areas like equine, forestry, farming and teachers in local areas. But it will not cover remote working.
Planning will only be granted of the house is used as a permanent main home for a minimum of 10 years, and it cannot be used for short term rent in that time.
According to reports in RTÉ, during a Cabinet briefing, Housing Minister James Browne said in a statement that these new guidelines will bring balance.
"This is not a choice between, say, planning and a free-for-all", he said in a statement. "This is about bringing a sensible approach where people can reasonably be able to build a home in their own local community, but also respecting the climate".
"We've done that within the planning bills as well, by protecting high-amenity areas and sensitive areas as well, which will be protected within the new yields".
The minister added that he wanted people in rural areas to be able to live in their local communities, but in a lot of cases, people are not able to do it anymore, due to mainly cost.
"I think it's a social good. It's a social good for somebody to be able to live where their family lives, where their friends are, where they grew up, and it adds to that local community", his statement read.
"And while we want to preserve rural Ireland, to do that properly we have to be able to let people to live in rural Ireland."
Minister of State for Planning John Cummins said the Government recognises that one-off homes are an important part of rural life and it is making it easier for people to live close to their families and remain in their communities".
Elsewhere, Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Housing said that this new policy must be put before the Oireachtas and public consultation, adding that the Government must be open to making changes were necessary.
