Planning restrictions placed by Clare County Council on visually vulnerable areas were criticised by the county's Dáil candidates at a public meeting in Kilrush this week.
It follows a report published by the meeting's organisers, Rural Action Project, a community initiative aimed at tackling poverty and isolation. The report argues that the planning process has constrained local community development and criticises the ban the council imposed on one-off housing for non-locals in designated visually vulnerable areas.
The issue has flared up in western counties in recent months, notably in February, when An Taisce was accused by a member of Mayo County Council of trying to bury rural Ireland.
Mr Brendan Daly, a former minister for the marine and Fianna Fáil TD for Clare, denied at the meeting that the county's landscape had been despoiled by inappropriate housing.
"By and large, there are beautiful houses in every part of this county owned by people who planned and designed them to their own satisfaction and taste," he said. Mr Daly was responding to a query from the floor when a man read excerpts of a letter written by an American couple to The Irish Times complaining of "scenic areas and remote country roads blemished by new nondescript and 'trophy' houses".
Mr Daly's constituency colleague, the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, said planning was a question of balance between sustainability, development and taking a practical approach. People unable to live in rural areas because of emigration could now stay there and rear families.
"It is important to recognise that, if we are to stop depopulation, we cannot have a situation where people cannot live and work in their own areas," she said.
Mr Donal Carey, of Fine Gael, called for more open participation in the drafting of planning blueprints, saying there had not been sufficient communication between planners and residents when the 1999 County Development Plan was adopted. "It was delivered as a fait accompli," he said.
The Rural Action Project group said the holiday home developments which took place over the past decade, notably in Kilkee, Lahinch and Fanore, had undermined the notion of "sustainable development and planning" in the minds of many residents.
The council's planners are coming under increasing pressure to adopt a less severe approach to planning, after it emerged recently that two out of every three applications refused last year were for one-off houses in rural areas.
Mr Brian Meaney, a Green Party candidate, said if there were inconsistencies in planning, they had to be dealt with at political level. A Fine Gael candidate, Cllr Pat Breen, said he had dealt with at least 20 applications which had been refused under the planning regulation. "The council is much too strict for farmers and their children, who want to build houses on the opposite side of the road to the sea," he said.
The Labour Party candidate, Cllr Michael Corley, called for the clause on development in visually vulnerable areas to be removed. "If we want to develop west Clare, we have to get people to live and work [there]," he said.