The Green Party has raised concerns over Government proposals to regenerate rural towns and villages.

Spokesperson on Local Government Cllr Michael Noonan said the plans will fail if issues of rural planning and public transport are not addressed.

He said: "While we welcome the plan, and there are some laudable proposals contained in it, we are very concerned about the lack of any support for rural public transport. Bus Éireann is in meltdown, rural public transport receives paltry financial support and we would like to see a broader role for postbuses and other transport initiatives. The Government seems to be failing to join the dots here. This is the third attempt to throw money at the decline in towns and villages. Government needs to look more deeply at it, by grappling with the transport issue in rural areas.

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"Furthermore, incentive schemes to regenerate housing in towns and villages will not be attractive to families as long as there is an availability of cheap land to build houses without restriction in size and where services are becoming increasingly difficult to provide. We cannot expect Local Authority members to introduce planning restrictions on one off rural housing as it impacts on their constituency base. Planning restrictions need to be introduced at a National level to curtail one off rural housing. This will be more cost effective in terms of provision of infrastructure and make living in our towns and villages more attractive.

"Finally, we would advocate that the incentives for re-developing housing stock in towns and villages should be administered as grants through the Heritage Council where conservation standards are prioritised for what is mostly late 19th or early 20th century building stock and that can have a multiplier effect of incentivising traditional building skills."

(CD/MH)