The chairman of Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI), Mr Jim Connolly, is to take the fight to halt the depopulation of the Irish countryside to the chamber of Clare County Council next month.
The move is one plank of a wider campaign along the western seaboard to stem the haemorrhage of people from rural areas.
Mr Connolly is the founder of the recently-established Irish Rural Dwellers' Association (IRDA). Its members include the retired Údarás na Gaeltachta chief executive, Mr Cathal MacGabhann; archaeologist Dr Seamus Caulfield; the chairman of the Council of the West, Mr Seán Hannick; director of Údarás na Gaeltachta Mr Seán Ó Baoill; and a Mayo TD Dr Jerry Cowley.
Mr Connolly made the application to address the council after its planners recently turned down two applications for rural resettlement social housing in the open countryside because of its general ban on "non-locals" building there.
The decisions to refuse permission have been appealed to An Bord Pleanála by Rural Resettlement Ireland and, according to Mr Connolly, the rulings are symptomatic of the challenges facing rural communities.
"The decisions by the council shatter RRI's new housing programme. It is up to the councillors to do something about the situation. They, as a planning authority, are presiding over the demise of the countryside. They cannot wash their hands of this."
Highlighting the depopulation of the west Clare area, the parish priest of Kilbaha and Cross, Father Pat O'Neill, said he had counted the loss of 27 households in the Loop Head peninsula over the past seven years. Today, it has a population of 1,200 compared to the pre-Famine number of 20,000.
Father O'Neill said: "I don't know what can be done. There must be positive discrimination for people seeking to live permanently in these areas. In the 1970s, Father Harry Bohan, through Rural Resource, was able to regenerate rural areas, but I don't believe the planning policies that exist today would allow that to happen now."
With county development plans making it difficult for people to build homes in the open countryside, the main aim of the Irish Rural Dwellers' Association is to ensure that the traditional forms of the dispersed Irish village, based on the townland structure, are properly understood and respected in the planning process.
Mr MacGabhann said that the emphasis of planning authorities on stopping people from building in the countryside was completely wrong - the countryside had been able to accommodate five million people in the 19th century. He added: "Local authority planners are unelected officials with authority without the responsibility and are answerable to no one."
Mr Connolly said that the formation of the association had been motivated by the need of rural communities to fight back. It would lobby the Government on behalf of rural dwellers specifically on spatial policy and planning concerns. "I had to persuade no one to become involved. There is nothing new in rural communities uniting, it was done through the Land League. It is a battle for survival, it is as stark as that."
Co Mayo-based Mr Seán Hannick, chairman of the Council of the West, said: "I am optimistic that the IRDA can make a difference. What it says makes a lot of common sense. A balance needs to struck."
Co Donegal-based Mr Seán Ó Baoill, director of Údarás, said: "The new organisation will help focus people on the issue. There is a huge problem in planning and by coming together we can act to change policy."
Mr Connolly said that much responsibility rested with the newly-appointed Minister for Community, Rural and Gaelacht Affairs, Mr Ó Cuív.
Mr Connolly cited a statement made by Mr Ó Cuív at a conference in Kilrush prior to his appointment. The Minister said then that planning would "only be generally accepted in an area where the rules are sensitive to local wishes and traditions". The Minister had also said: "Expecting people not to feel aggrieved at not being allowed to sell sites is unrealistic and will not be resolved by diktat and rules, but by comprehensive rural development policies."
Mr Connolly said: "Minister Ó Cuív now has to pursue what he openly declared and act as a political spearhead for what will be a co-ordinated campaign through the RDA all along the western seaboard."