63. Deputy Conor D. McGuinness asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development the work he has undertaken to date to address the crisis impacting on rural communities where young families are unable to find a home in the area they were raised in; and if he has met the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to discuss the matter. [26532/25]

Sentiment score: -0.20

Rural communities are in crisis. Young families who cannot find homes in their communities are being pushed into larger urban centres, which are already under pressure. Rural communities, ár gceantair Ghaeltachta san áireamh, are facing an existential threat. What specific steps are the Minister and his Department taking to support rural and coastal communities facing decline due to the total lack of housing opportunities and availability?

Sentiment score: -0.25

The Minister mentioned Our Rural Future. While I am glad to hear that the next iteration of the Government's rural development policy will look at housing, the previous one did not do so in any meaningful sense. In fact, it had more to say on rural broadband than on rural housing. I believe that is part of the fundamental problem. This Government and its predecessors have wasted years when housing should have been developed. Rural communities need action on housing. They need delivery of affordable and social homes and provision of affordable serviced sites. Coastal villages like Ardmore are facing a demographic cliff edge. Tá ár gceantair Ghaeltachta, cosúil leis An Rinn i bPort Láirge, ag feitheamh le blianta i gcomhair tithíochta inacmhainne agus sóisialta. Families are crying out for help. While the Minister is right that much of the responsibility lies with the housing Minister, the Department of Rural and Community Development needs to step up. The recently passed national planning framework offers zero ambition. It remains to be seen what Our Rural Future mark 2 will promise and actually deliver when it comes to rural housing.

Sentiment score: -0.00

I look forward to having those discussions with the Minister both at committee and in the Chamber and, indeed, offline because this is an issue that is not going away any time soon. Much time has been wasted over the last five to ten years when we should have been developing housing, but it is never too late to start doing the right thing. It needs to be focused on keeping rural communities alive because the consequences of an action are playing out before our eyes in my constituency, which I am more familiar with, in An Rinn, Bunmahon, Dunmore East and Ardmore, which I mentioned. GAA clubs cannot field teams. Schools are losing pupils and are at risk of closure in some cases. Families are under huge emotional and financial distress and are being taken apart from each other. That social fabric and social support and infrastructure are not where they should be, and they should be the cornerstone of our rural communities. This is the cost of Government inaction over the last five to ten years. We cannot continue in that same vein. I welcome the Minister's comments today that this will be a major focus of the next rural development policy, but he can understand a little of my cynicism when we passed in this House a number of weeks ago the national planning framework, which had zero ambition. It had so little to say about rural communities, rural development and rural housing.

Sentiment score: -0.04