North Tipp Cllr highlights lack of fairness for young people seeking housing

A NORTH Tipp councillor this week highlighted a housing system which is too bureaucratic for young people seeking housing and is lacking in fairness.
Cllr Seamus Morris pointed out that there are different rules for asylum seekers as opposed to Irish people. “We are being flooded with asylum seekers in Ireland,” he said, “but in the meantime we as a State are refusing planning permissions for our own young people, based on such bogus reasons as 'economic need' and 'local need'; at the same time we are in the midst of an endless housing crisis.”
The Nenagh Councillor appealed to the government to “stop strangling our own young people's futures.”
He argued that during a housing crisis we should be allowing planning permission for young people “who can provide their own site and money and can put in proper percolation for waste water.”
To prove his point about an overly bureaucratic planning system, he listed the following County Council stipulations for planning applications:
One of the overly restrictive sections, as taken from the Tipperary County Development Plan 2022 to 2028, states the following in those situations where “the application site is located within an Area of Urban Influence. In Areas Of Urban Influence the Council will consider single houses for persons when the criteria set out in Category 1A or B, or Category 2 hereunder are met:
“Category 1: Economic Need. The applicant must demonstrate an economic need to reside in the area through active employment in farming/agricultural activity (farming, horticulture, forestry, bloodstock). The farm must exceed 20 hectares in total. The applicant must be actively engaged in farming. The applicant must demonstrate that they have been engaged in farming at that location for a continuous period of over five years to making the application. The applicant does not or has never owned a house in the open countryside.
“1B: The applicant must demonstrate an economic need to reside in the area through active engagement in the running of a farming, horticultural, forestry or bloodstock activity on an area less than 20 hectares where it is demonstrated to form a significant part of the livelihood of the applicant who engaged in farming activity on a daily basis.
“And all the criteria below is met: The applicant is trained in good farming practice, owns or occupies, works and maintains land for the purposes of achieving outputs and they have been engaged in farming/agricultural activity at that location for a continuous period of over five years prior to making the application. A detailed five year business plan will be required to demonstrate compliance with this.”

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