The Family Unit Needs To Become The Next Special Area Of Conservation

The Family Unit Needs To Become The Next Special Area Of Conservation

Councillor Noel Thomas The Independent Ireland Councillor, Noel Thomas, has said that the destabilisation of the family unit in rural Ireland is one of the major threats to a functional society.

“We need to reset the way we think about the family unit in our society,” Councillor Thomas said. “Currently planning and economic policies are functioning to destabilise families and this is having an extremely negative impact on all aspects of the community.

I have been working for 10 years as a Councillor helping individuals, families and groups with planning issues. I firmly believe that people should be allowed to build on their own land and I was instrumental in getting backland sites included as being suitable for planning as part of the last County Development Plan.”  

“We have policies to protect everything from bog cotton to snails but we need to do more to protect the fundamental unit of our society. Families support each other and care for each other. This is particularly important in circumstances where the state has failed to do so.

The lack of carers in the west of Ireland is a classic example of this. Vulnerable people have no access to services because the state can’t get the staff. This is leaving vast sections of the county without access to services, and no family members to pick up pieces because they have been driven out of the community by planning regulations that force them into towns and cities where they have no connections at all.

Allowing families to live and work togetherwill be my priority as a Councillor and it is the priority of Independent Ireland at a national level. ”