Planning restrictions on the N56 road in Donegal are preventing people from returning home from Australia, the Dáil has heard.
The National Policy restricts one-off building of homes accessing the N56 road, which stretches from Donegal town, clockwise, right through Letterkenny, and it passes through towns such as Mountcharles, Ardara and Glenties, up through Dungloe, Falcarragh, out to Dunfanaghy and Creeslough, through Kilmacrennan until it reaches Letterkenny again.
Sinn Féin Deputy Pearse Doherty said the blanket policy is leaving family land ‘sterilised’, and creating huge financial issues for people wishing to build.
The policy, he said, “has resulted in some cases of people who have gone to Australia because they cannot get building in their own county. It has resulted in huge financial issues for others because the land that they have, their family land, is sterilised for the purpose of housing and they have to fork out €50,000, €60,000 or more for a site.”
Deputy Doherty said that the speed limit reductions could open the door for the national policy to be reviewed.
“Cars going slower along these roads make them safer and allow appropriate houses to be built on adjacent roads.
On Thursday last, during a topical issue Dáil debate, Deputy Doherty asked Minister of State Thomas Byrne TD to engage with Transport Infrastructure Ireland and ask it to have this policy reviewed considering the impact it is having on Donegal.
He added: “I understand the rationale for some of it in terms of road safety but we have planners and road sections of the planning division where they look at braking distance and vision lines and decide whether it is safe and appropriate for a house to be built in that area, allowing for access onto a road. TII takes a completely uncompromising approach, which says if a development is coming onto the N56, which is the spine of Donegal, it is not allowed planning.
“It is sterilising land right across the area. We have major issues with depopulation. I believe in vibrancy in our rural communities and our Gaeltacht communities. I want to see young people being able to build on their own land.”
Minister Byrne commented that he will pass on the issue to the Minister for Transport and agreed that “we need to make sure that people can live in their communities.”
