Ó Cuív highlights importance of balanced regional planning

IT’S important that the country experienced balanced development, with rural communities not being forgotten, Minister Éamon Ó Cuív told Clare County councillors this week.
He said it’s important that people don’t lose sight of the overall consequences of policy.
“We should continue to ask the question what kind of Ireland do we want to live in? What kind of social outcomes do we want to achieve for all communities, rural and urban?”
The type of settlement wanted for the country needs to be considered, he said. “Do we want rural decline and urban sprawl or balanced development?”
He said that the Government are committed to ensuring the “social wellbeing” of rural communities.
The minister stressed the importance of strengthening RAPID areas in towns and cities and Clár areas in rural parts of the country.
The improvement in broadband could cut down on the necessity for people to travel long distances to work. “People always have an affinity to the place where they are from and with improvements in infrastructure, people may be able to work close to where they live, rather than living close to where they work.”
He said townlands were a form of community unique to Ireland and that they were much more than “random scatterings of houses”.
However, Councillor PJ Kelly said that the draft regional planning guidelines for the Mid-West seemed to tell a different story.
He said they only provide for 19 houses to be built in North Clare per annum, with 24 for West Clare. “Is that part of Government policy?” he asked.
Responding, the minister said that there was a “hierarchy of policy” and that the Government was committed to rural development.
He said that if regional guidelines were adopted, they would have to be approved by councillors from the regions in question. He said he presumed that any such guidelines would not contradict the National Spatial Strategy or Government policy.
Councillor Michael Kelly criticised the NRA for looking to block new exits onto the N67 but the minister said he was behind their stance and that it was important that they prioritise such roads.
He said that there had been “a fetish of road frontage” in the past, while he said it was possible to hide the negative elements of one-off house building, by putting them in locations where they will be hidden by natural contours of hills.