The Irish Rural Dwellers' Association (IRDA) has threatened a constitutional challenge to the right of local authorities to designate areas as high amenity, including areas of outstanding natural beauty.
Mr Jim Connolly, the association's acting secretary, told a forum organised by the Wicklow Uplands Council in Glendalough yesterday that it believed there was no legal basis for such designations, which had become an obstacle to building houses in the countryside.
The IRDA also welcomed Wexford County Council's decision last Friday to drop a local needs requirement for housing in rural areas - it had lobbied for this change in the county development plan. In doing so, Mr Connolly denied that they were representing property interests.
But Frank McDonald, Environment Editor of The Irish Times, said the change would result in Wexford people being "profoundly disadvantaged" as they would no longer be able to compete with Dubliners who could more easily afford to buy sites.
In a keynote speech at the Glendalough conference, he said rural housing should be geared to cater for local needs, particularly of people involved in farming, and not simply available to those who could afford to buy half-acre sites for €100,000 or more.
Mr Tony Pratschke, a member of the national executive of IRDA, attributed the high level of sporadic development to Ireland's "emergence from a peasant society". Large new houses were being built because people had "a great pride" in being able to have a house much better than their ancestors.
He said the IRDA "does not subscribe to the idea that we have a planning problem".
Though he conceded that some new rural housing looked "execrable", its effect on the landscape could not be prevented because "we cannot legislate for taste".
Mr Philip Geoghegan, of UCD's School of Architecture, suggested that local authorities must look beyond house-by-house applications to the aggregate effect of sporadic development. The construction of similarly designed two-storey dormer houses is in danger of "producing a national style", he warned. The general approach should be to "avoid building in the uplands if you can".
Mr Jim Devlin, secretary of the IFA Environment Committee, said there is a wide spectrum of opinion among farmers regarding the sale of sites for housing. It ranges from landowners who wanted to abolish all restrictions to those who "will not sell a single perch of land" and even point their own children to the nearest urban centre.
Thus, the description of "greedy farmers" is wholly inaccurate because the gains to be made from selling sites resulted from robust economic growth, Mr Devlin said.
Mr Andrew Doyle, a Wicklow county councillor, said urban pressures had generated more rural housing "than should have been put in" and in the current review of the county plan, Mr Seán Quirke, senior executive officer with the council, said he hoped that the "local needs" requirement would be retained.
Another Wicklow councillor, Mr Nicky Kelly, said some Dubliners who had moved into south Wicklow were taking issue with farming practices that had gone on for years, such as taking hay bales on tractor-drawn trailers and even the smell of silage.