Rural areas could see a massive decline in population if planners throughout the State do not allow one-off houses, it has been claimed.
A conference titled "One-off rural housing - is there an alternative?", hosted by North Tipperary County Council in Nenagh yesterday, was told that planning models used by local authorities could have an adverse affect on rural life rather than enhance it.
Dr Seamus Caulfield, retired professor of archaeology at University College Dublin, said parishes throughout the State could experience a 20 per cent population decrease over the next 10 years if one-off rural housing was not permitted.
Dr Caulfield, who has undertaken research on rural resettlement at the Céide Fields in Co Mayo, said rural settlements dating back to the Stone Age were dispersed throughout the Irish countryside but that in recent years planners were using British Anglo-Saxon planning models that emphasise "settlement in urban areas - nucleation settlements".
The British model, Dr Caulfield said, does not lend itself to Ireland because over 40 per cent of the population is rural, as opposed to a predominantly urban population in Britain of 90 per cent.
Dr Caulfield added that if Irish planners were to use a policy similar to the British planning model, radical changes would be needed for settlement patterns throughout the State.
He said he didn't accept these changes and that the British model "is not a clear description of the reality of rural settlement in Ireland".
"One-off rural housing should continue," said Dr Caulfield. "But it should not be a free-for-all and should be controlled by strict planning."
Mr John Greer, a senior lecturer in the School of Environmental Planning at Queen's University in Belfast, said one-off rural housing reduced the demand for public-sector housing and helped regenerate rural areas, "bringing new blood to where it is needed".
But Mr John Ducie, vice-chairman of An Taisce, said such housing "undermined the social fabric of a community".
Mr Ducie added that the increase of such developments prevented increases in the "critical mass" of rural town and village populations, which was necessary to attract inward investment, employment and industry to rural areas. Tourism could also be affected by such housing, he added.
"The average tourist is not going to come to Ireland to see the same types of developments as everywhere else," he said.
Instead, the tourist will come to see a "distinctive Celtic landscape, and not concrete houses."
Mr Ducie said there should be one-off rural housing where there was a pressing social need or where family members are working on farms or family activities in the area.
But he added: "Inappropriate development threatens the sustainability of rural communities."
He said the issue was about legacy. "It is about what we leave to the next generation is what is important."