Rural housing agency to ‘give back 21 keys’ due to lack of funding

Rural Resettlement Ireland, a housing agency which was forced to curtail activities after its funding was cut in 2012, has said it intends to post the keys of its last 21 houses to the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe.

The organisation was set up in 1990 and went on to help more than 800 families resettle in counties from Leitrim to Cork, offering urban dwellers an alternative way of life, and working to keep rural schools and post offices open.

The agency, operating from a small office in Co Clare, matched those seeking a change with available housing and sometimes with jobs in the rural economy.

In its latter years of activity the agency began directly providing houses, through funding from the Department of Finance, and it still manages 21 properties in Co Clare.

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Jim Connolly, who founded the organisation, said that up until 2012 the agency was funded by government “as they saved a lot of money on urban, social houses”.

However, he said once funding was pulled the agency’s work was curtailed. He said the last member of staff received her redundancy payment the same week last year that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar expressed support for a voluntary resettlement scheme.

‘Logical’

Mr Varadkar said it was “eminently logical that parts of the country where there’s been rural depopulation, where there are properties available, where there are places in schools, where there are services available, I can certainly see a place for a rural resettlement scheme”.

Mr Connolly said he contacted the Taoiseach’s department but “heard nothing back”.

He said that having determined the agency had to cease operations altogether he sought and got agreement from Clare Co Council to take over the management of the 21 houses. But in order for the council to take them over they must be first brought up to a local authority standard, and funding from central government has not been forthcoming, he said.

Faced with the ongoing responsibility and heading into advanced years, Mr Connolly decided that if the housing transfer is not completed by May 2nd, his next birthday, he would post the keys to Mr Donohoe.

Attitude

Mr Connolly said he believes the reason funding was never restored for the organisation, even during a housing emergency, was due to the agency’s attitude to rural planning.

He said Rural Resettlement Ireland believed in housing families in one-off rural homes, but this was no longer supported by State planners, who he believes want people housed in towns and cities.

A fearless advocate of a dispersed housing policy, he has clashed on a number of occasions with those who argue that people not economically connected to the land should stay in towns and villages.

After his experience working with a housing agency for almost 30 years Mr Connolly says he could no longer advise anyone else to get involved.

“It has to be a statutory body, like a local authority, otherwise you have all these difficulties,” he said.