Government to Sign Off on New Rural and Gaeltacht Housing Guidelines
Tuesday 30 June 2026
The government is signing off on draft guidelines that will ease restrictions on building one-off rural and Gaeltacht homes.
The Irish government is signing off on draft planning guidelines for one-off rural and Gaeltacht housing.
The new planning policy is designed to provide national consistency and clarity on where and how rural homes can be built. Under the new document, local authorities are instructed not to include overly restrictive rules within their local development plans, and must instead evaluate each housing application on its own individual merits.
Several long-standing restrictions will be removed under the draft rules. Local authorities will no longer be permitted to restrict ribbon and backland developments, nor will they be allowed to set caps on the number of homes built on a single farm. Additionally, the guidelines advise councils against setting prescriptive limits on the number of houses allowed in a specific area.
The policy also scraps minimum site sizes and minimum road frontage requirements for rural housing. The overhaul is intended to make it easier for local families to build one-off homes in their home areas.