Peter Chap-Clear

And safeguards will absolutely need to be put in place, David.

And I have been speaking to the Minister last week and I know at the moment there is environmental screening going on so it's really important that all those standards are met.

This is not compromising on standards but we need to put in a situation that if you want the opportunity to live in a rural town or village or rural area, the barriers that are there at the moment are far too high.

And even you look at something like designs, I mean, they could be very, very costly getting professional reports or archaeological reports or road reports.

You look at things like if you're coming onto a national or a regional road, like sometimes it's just a straight no from local authorities, other local authorities will have a little bit of flexibility.

So it's just too many inconsistencies.

But what government has to do is to allow a situation that if you're from a rural area, if you have a connection to the rural area, if you have lands in a rural area, that planning should be supported in trying to get planning permission and not barriers put in front of you left, right and centre.

That would be my very, very strong view with David.

Oh, you'd have dozens.

You'd have dozens knocked back.

Now, to be fair, Kilkenny County Council and Carlow County Council are very, very good.

They're very, very open and they're very, very strong.

But at the same time, no more than any county, there are situations where people get knocked back and whether it be based on backland development, which is a no-no, or coming out onto regional roads.

And it's very, very disappointing for those people because in some instances, David, it's the only parts of land they have or it's the only family site they have.

And as I said, we need to be encouraging people who want to set up roots and continue their family traditions to be able to do that.

So I'm not talking about somebody from Dublin coming down and buying an apartment or buying a house or building a house in the west coast of Ireland.

I'm talking about if you're from a community, if you're from an area, if you have a strong connection, if you have roots in a place, that you should be allowed to apply for a panel submission in that area.

And one thing that Oisín brought in that I actually think would be really helpful is something I'd be very passionate about is

to try and encourage clustered rural housing.

So instead of isolated one-off houses scattered across the countryside, that the new planning policy should encourage small clusters of homes, maybe developments near existing village, where you can share the infrastructure, like your electricity, like your wastewater, like your broadband.