Sinn Féin's Conor D. McGuinness TD said new Central Bank findings reveal deepening delays and a lack of vital infrastructure holding back house-building across rural Ireland.

The party's spokesperson on Rural Affairs, Community Development and the Gaeltacht argued that the Government is not addressing the key obstacles stopping people from constructing homes outside urban areas.

According to the Central Bank's latest Quarterly Bulletin, published today, the average time from planning application to completion has doubled since 2017. For one-off homes, the construction phase alone has stretched from around 13 months to about 25 months.

Speaking at the National Ploughing Championship in Screggan, Deputy McGuinness said: "The Central Bank has today put numbers on what young people and families across rural Ireland already know: getting a home built is taking far too long.

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"But these figures do not capture the full scale of the problem.

"They do not capture the experience of young people who cannot get planning permission in the first place. They do not capture the family who has planning permission but cannot get the water, wastewater or electricity connection they need.

"That is because successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments have failed to adequately invest in the infrastructure rural communities need.

"Government cannot respond to this crisis by tinkering with planning rules while failing to provide the infrastructure needed to actually build homes.

"The long-awaited rural planning guidelines published this summer leave a lot to be desired and will do little to address the crisis in rural housing.

"Planning permission is of little use to a family if the infrastructure needed to build the home simply isn't there.

"Rural Ireland needs a Government with the ambition to actually get homes built.

"We need to make it possible for young people to build a family home, stay in their own community and give our towns, villages and countryside a future.

"Eoin Ó Broin and I are engaging directly with rural communities and organisations on the Government’s draft guidelines, including here at the Ploughing Championships."