One-off rural houses not the answer, claims Ó Cuív

THE future of rural Ireland is not about one-off houses — but about the kind of society and value system we want.

That was the message yesterday to campaigners on rural issues from Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Eamon Ó Cuiv. He insisted rural housing was part of a much bigger question about the quality of community life in both urban and rural communities.

“Do we want rural decline and urban sprawl? Do we want the isolation, the festering sense of dislocation and the disintegration that go with them? Do we want people spending hours in cars to get to their place of work or education each day?” he asked.

The minister said he did not go along with conventional wisdom that development should only take place in urban settings. He remarked: “There’s huge potential in rural areas for development.”

Speaking at the Irish Rural Dwellers’ Association conference, in Killarney, he said the implementation of the State’s own policies on access to rural housing was central to ensuring the achievement of the European Union’s rural development policy.

“If we are to follow through on the diversification of the rural economy, we need to implement existing policies on access to housing in rural areas,” he said.

“It is better for sustainability when people live closer to their place of work rather than commuting for many hours.”

Mr Ó Cuiv said he did not agree with “lopsided thinking” that it was more convenient to break up communities and load people into already overloaded areas in cities and towns.

“This practice also puts undue pressures on existing urban communities. Overloading of our urban areas also means that people from an urban community find it more and more difficult to access housing in their own native area, or near to it,” he said.