Murphy and Kelly clash over cap on rural houses
FORMER housing minister Alan Kelly has claimed the caps on the number of homes allowed for different towns and villages, under the Government’s controversial new planning framework, will lead to war in rural Ireland.
However, as objections to Project Ireland 2040 grow in towns not listed among the key regional capitals chosen for the
plan, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘Alan is wrong.’
The furious war of words broke out after Government TDs and senators had been celebrating an apparent climbdown by the Government on one-off rural housing, with the mood being captured by Fine Gael Senator Tim Lombard, who noted: ‘We saved the culchie mansions.’
Mr Kelly said that the ‘proposed caps on building development in areas which don’t have designated status under the plan will mean rural families, who have the means and land to build on, will, in the middle of a house construction crisis, be stopped from building family homes’.
He said: ‘In my county of Tipperary the cap on new housing is 400. Any planning applications above that will be refused. This will lead to war in rural Ireland.’
However, yesterday Minister Murphy told the MoS: ‘Alan is wrong. There are no caps. All parts of the country can grow under the new plan and the new funds empower them to do that’. In response to that, Mr Kelly was
‘We have saved the culchie mansions’
equally sharp and he dismissed the position, saying: ‘The minister should read his own plan if he has the time.’
The figures, he said, ‘are quite clear. Towns can prosper but only if other areas stagnate in terms of housing. The plan has fixed numbers for growth which regions and councils must now flesh out’.
Mr Kelly has constructed a political alliance to oppose the new national plan along with independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice, Fianna Fáil’s Eamon Ó Cuív and Sinn Féin.
The Labour deputy warned: ‘It goes against all logic that, in the middle of a housing crisis incorporating supply and affordability, we are placing restrictions on the building of homes.
‘Instead of getting joined-up writing in office this is government by scribble box.’
Mr Kelly also warned: ‘The capacity of every town which is not a special designated town is hugely compromised.
‘Big towns such as Killarney, Kilkenny, Nenagh, Clonmel, Tullamore, Wexford, Tralee and Portlaoise are going to be discriminated against. These are major towns which are now designated as thirdtier towns; they will have no capacity to grow.’
In a warning which will raise political sensitivities, particularly among ministers he said: ‘Towns that are not chosen have been abandoned; they will have to survive despite the Government. Worse still, the entire south of the country has been abandoned.’
Fianna Fáil’s Niall Collins was sharply critical of the impact on small villages, telling the MoS: ‘Under this plan small villages like Abbeyfeale and Kilmallock will be able to build less than ten houses a year.’ He warned that it will create wars that will leave ‘The Field looking like an episode of Downton Abbey’.
Mr Kelly, the architect of an earlier plan, said: ‘Project Ireland 2040 is a legally dubious politicised document which will destroy the capacity of small rural communities to build houses across a huge swathe of farming areas.’
These concerns were backed up by Dr Ronan Lyons, economist at Trinity College Dublin and author of the Daft.ie property reports. He told the MoS that applying caps to housing is not the right approach and is a ‘crude’ attempt to drive people to larger urban areas.
‘I can see the motivation because realistically the percentage of people living in rural areas is going to fall substantially, but a much more honest way of doing it would be to pass the cost of one-off housing to those who are building it.
‘If you want to disincentivise something the first question is why, and if it’s because there’s some cost associated with it, just pass that cost on to the people who want to build on-off housing in low density areas. That would be my preferred way of doing things, rather than banning anyone from doing anything. It’s quite crude to have a limit and not allow any housing above that. What if the population grows faster than expected?’
Dr Lyons said the caps for areas such Abbeyfeale and Kilmallock in Co. Limerick, ‘seems odd’, considering the plans to Limerick to grow as a second-tier city.
‘If Limerick were to treble in size over the next half century the towns around it are going to need significant numbers of new homes as well, so it seems a little counterintuitive,’ he said.
‘They’re talking about providing 25,000 new homes, half the number that’s actually needed in the country. They’re significantly underestimating the need for housing. Even if the plan came to fruition, there will be significant pressure on housing over the coming years,’ he told the MoS. Michael Fitzmaurice said: ‘Fine Gael backbenchers are celebrating a non-existent win; you still cannot build in rural Ireland.’ He warned that the plan ‘is the height of stupidity; it is all spin and fancy music; it is a bureaucrat’s charter that will end one-off housing by stealth’.
Deputy Collins said the project was resting on shoddy foundations, owing to the absence of apprenticeships in the building trade.
We are ‘planning to build 25,000 houses in a scenario where, in 2017, only 60 apprentices registered for brick and stone-laying and 34 for plastering’, he said.
‘If the tradespeople aren’t there with the right skills to build and finish our houses, the pie in the sky ambition of the National Development Plan and Planning Framework will be nothing more than wasted ink,” he added.
EOGHAN MURPHY Alan is wrong. There are no caps
ALAN KELLY The Minister should read his own plan if he has time
‘The Field will look like Downton Abbey’