By any standards Keelogue Upper at Newcastle Upper in County Wicklow is a beautiful location. It lies just west of the N11 at the southern end of the Newtownmountkennedy by-pass. The landscape and views are stunning and take in Bray Head, the Sugarloaf, and much of the east coast. Below Keelogue lies Newtownmountkennedy with the spire of the Church of Ireland at Newcastle just visible to the east.

At 1.2 miles from the N11 it benefits from what Wicklow County Council has previously described as "excellent access" to Dublin city, a journey of about 25 miles, most of it on dual carriageway. So enthusiastic are auctioneers Remax Garden County about the location, that the firm is seeking offers in excess of £279,000 for the one-acre site which carries full planning permission.

Information supplied by Remax puts the site at "40 minutes from south Dublin" and makes much of the superb elevated position, going as far as to mention the names of surrounding hills.

Services, the auctioneer points out, include water from a spring well and drainage from the already sanctioned bungalow is to be by septic tank. There is even a stream through the proposed garden which could be incorporated to make a water feature. There is mains electricity nearby.

It is not difficult to imagine a hoard of urban professionals bidding against each other to make a home where their children may keep a pony and where they can all wake up to the sound of birdsong.

The estate agent's . It was offered for sale by Remax, by private treaty earlier this year.

Last week the practice of building one-off bungalows was trenchantly defended by the Minister of State with responsibility for Rural Development, Mr Eamon O'Cuiv. Mr O'Cuiv said he would take "serious issue" with planners whose only concept of a village was a "street village". He argued that "a countryside without people is destroyed".

But a very different view has been taken by the Irish Planning Institute who point out that the "epidemic" of single houses is threatening the deliverability of the £41 billion National Development Plan. Speaking at the institute's annual conference in Kilkenny last week, Mr Philip Jones president of the IPI suggested that only those who could demonstrate a need, as opposed to a desire, should be allowed to build in rural areas.

Central to the institute's thinking is the difficulty in servicing one-off houses with infrastructure such as mains drainage, decent roads, public transport, waste management and postal and emergency services. According to the institute, such housing encourages the use of at least two cars per household. Access to shops, churches, hospitals and work is all car based, which the institute says is unsustainable.

Ironically the development plans of most local authorities - including Wicklow - acknowledge this difficulty and contain sections in which the aim of directing development towards existing settlements is expressly stated. Yet in recent years, particularly in the counties around Dublin, the discredited Section Four motions - these are where the elected members formally instruct planners to grant planning permission - have been making a come-back.

The situation is now so severe that Mr Jones has queried whether councillors who are subjected to the pressure of a clientelist system should actually have power over planning issues. The outgoing president of the Irish Planning Institute has suggested the Minister for the Environment, who he points out has already removed powers from councillors in relation to waste management, might look at removing planning decisions from elected councillors.