The Irish Times

Planning applications for one-off houses in rural areas were being refused in order to swell the populations of towns and cities, and "enforced urbanisation" was at the core of the planning policy, with which there was "deep frustration", a conference of the Irish Rural Dwellers' Association (Irda) was told yesterday. The conference in Killarney, "Last Call for Rural Planning", heard that the policy of forcing people to live in urban areas was fully endorsed by the Government and by most political parties as a cost-saving exercise, but it was having devastating effects on rural hurling and football teams and on social life. Central Statistics Office figures due out next week would reveal a drop in the numbers living in dispersed settlement patterns in rural areas, where under the 2002 statistics some 33 per cent of the population had been shown to be living, Dr Séamus Caulfield predicted.