The chairman and founder of Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI), Mr Jim Connolly, yesterday protested alone outside Clare County Council's offices in Ennis against its ban on "outsiders" building houses in certain parts of Clare.
Under the council's controversial 1999 development plan, "non-locals" are not to be given planning permission across much of the county. Mr Connolly said the policy was bringing the RRI's latest housing initiative "to the point of collapse".
Carrying a placard which read: "Planning authority thrash RRI Housing Scheme - five families now refused entry to depopulated countryside because of 'locals only' rule", Mr Connolly said that the policy "is incomprehensible and very frustrating".
Since 1990 RRI has resettled more than 500 families from urban areas to rural areas across the country. More than 100 of those families have been resettled in Co Clare. However, recently the council has refused planning permission for five separate RRI houses due to the "non-local" rule.
"The frustration I am feeling over this is driving me out onto the streets for the first time in my life at the age of 65," Mr Connolly said. "RRI is trying to operate a Government-backed programme specifically aimed at bringing families into depopulated areas, but we are being prevented from doing so by this crazy planning policy."
He said that from a social and financial point of view the policy did not make sense. "These five families would contribute €750,000 to the Clare economy, along with helping to keep schools open. The council is shooting itself in the foot."
Mr Connolly has set up the Irish Rural Dwellers Association (IRDA), which he said will focus on the decline in farming and the increasing difficulties in obtaining planning permission.
"I had to persuade no one to become involved," he said. "There is nothing new in rural communities uniting, we did it through the Land League. It is a battle for survival, it is as stark as that."
He claimed the council's policy was part of a land clearance project, and the Government "is implementing the European pattern of an empty countryside and where everyone lives in urban areas. This is anathema to the Irish psyche and the Irish way of life."
He said: "It is morally reprehensible if the members of Clare County Council allow the countryside to die. They as a planning authority are presiding over the demise of the countryside. They cannot wash their hands of this."
Next Monday Mr Connolly is to address the July council meeting, where he will urge it to alter its plan so as to allow families under the RRI scheme to build houses in rural parts of Clare.