Former President Michael D Higgins and his family have become embroiled in a planning row over a proposal to build dozens of new houses right beside his family home in Galway, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.
asserted
Mail → embroil → Sunday
If given the green light, the development of 39 new homes would effectively enclose Mr Higgins’s home in a ‘horseshoe’.
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development → give → horseshoe
In a detailed planning submission, the 84-year-old – who sparked political tensions with the previous Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael-led government when he described the housing crisis as ‘disaster’ and a ‘great, great, great failure’ – accused the local authority of needlessly rezoning land for housing and of prioritising development over road safety.
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he → detail → safety
The two-term president returned to his Galway city home last November after 14 years living in the splendid surrounds of Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.
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president → return → Park
His wife, former first lady Sabina, and their three sons, John, Daniel and Michael, have also lodged submissions detailing their concerns in relation to the housing development.
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wife → lodge → development
The Higgins family are among 32 locals who have raised similar concerns about the plan to build two blocks of new homes and a row of detached and semi-detached houses on Galway’s Circular Road.
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who → raise → Road
The former president and his family insist they are not opposed to the construction of new houses beside their family home.
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they → insist → home
However, they claim the roads in the area are already unsafe for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, and that the proposed new development will cause further road safety problems.
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development → claim → problems
The former local Labour Party councillor – who went on to be elected a TD for Galway and later served as Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht in the FF–Labour coalition government led by Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, and following that John Bruton’s Rainbow Coalition – and his family have been living at their home in Rahoon since President Catherine Connolly was inaugurated as the country’s First Citizen last November.
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Connolly → go → Citizen
The Higgins family are among 32 locals who have raised similar concerns about the plan to build two blocks of new homes and a row of detached and semi-detached houses on Galway’s Circular Road
In his four-page submission to Galway City Council, Mr Higgins acknowledges his political career without citing his two-term presidency.
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Higgins → raise → presidency
'BUILDING HOMES IS WHAT MATTERS': What Michael D said when he went off-script while President
Then President Michael D Higgins delivers his passionate speech about Ireland's housing 'disaster'
In June 2022 at the opening of a new facility for young homeless people near Naas, Co. Kildare, former President Michael D Higgins described housing as a ‘disaster’ and the State’s ‘great, great, great failure’.
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Higgins → build → disaster
Below is a condensed version of his off-script speech that made national headlines.
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that → make → headlines
‘I often ask myself, how republican is what we created, and isn’t it sometimes very much closer to the poor law system that we thought we were departing from?
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we → ask → that
‘I have taken to speaking ever more frankly in relation to housing, because I think it is our great, great, great failure.
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it → take → housing
And I think that we have to really think about meeting the basic needs of people in a republic: food and shelter and education.
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we → think → republic
‘Building homes is what is important.
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what → build → homes
‘When you walk through our cities, and within 200 yards, using the old measurements, you see so many derelict buildings, so many abandoned buildings, when you look at half-empty villages, when you look at villages and towns from which the banks have fled because they’ve taken their profits and now operate differently – why can’t we, in fact, achieve the kind of results that we are celebrating here today?
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we → walk → that
‘And I think this is very, very, very important, not just for young people, important for where older people can stay part of their community with dignity, and it is all about dignity.
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it → think → dignity
And if we say we live in a republic, well let’s be republican in our behavior with each other in terms of meeting all the basic needs of society.
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’s → say → society
Then we can hold our heads up, rather than saying, “We adjusted the poor law system that we inherited, and we tried to put a harp on it.”
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we → hold → it
The fact of the matter is, let’s house our people, let’s educate our people, let’s show that no one is going hungry.
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one → house → people
Let’s show that there is no one excluded from any part of our society.
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’s → show → society
‘That’s what we should be celebrating 100 years on from the time we got the opportunity to be an independent people.
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we → ’ → opportunity
Sometimes it is only a very simple thing, but it is where personalities develop, where relationships with others are developed.
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relationships → develop → others
It is a place to come back to, a place to depart from, and this is what our great day today is: offering opportunities of home in the fullest sense of expressing yourself to people that you are offering.
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you → come → that
‘I think it’s very good that we opened our hearts and our homes to the people who are here from Ukraine, who are suffering the illegal occupation of their land.
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who → think → land
‘But we shouldn’t have to wait for that to open our hearts and homes, and more important, our policies, local and national, to look after the people we have neglected.
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we → have → people
How many are all those houses from which people left 100 years ago?
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people → leave → which
‘Why not breathe life into it by saying… the best life we can breathe is the life of an inclusive republic that values the right to shelter and home.’
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that → breathe → right
Instead, he refers to the great welcome he and his wife received after leaving the area ‘14 years ago’ before accusing Galway City Council of serious planning failures.
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he → refer → failures
Mr Higgins’ submission reads: ‘So many people in Galway have sought to make us feel welcome.
'
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us → read → Galway
It is with a heavy heart, however, that I have to report the experience of a deterioration in even the most basic elements of safety on the road where we and our neighbours live.
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we → have → road
‘There has been a vast increase in the volume of traffic which, when combined with a massive increase in speed on a road that has a school at one end that I know sought to be part of an attempt to encourage non car-dependent attendance at school.
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know → combine → school
The planning submission continues: ‘Since I left Letteragh 14 years ago, the failure to achieve a continuous footpath for the road, the failure to initiate a traffic management plan, joined with the absence of a public transport option is an issue so urgent that I cannot understand why planning for safety is not taking precedence in the City Council’s plans.’
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planning → continue → plans
In 2022, the then-President Higgins publicly declared that the chronic housing shortage was not just a crisis, but a social disaster.
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shortage → declare → 2022
Government figures at the time criticised Mr Higgins’s intervention.
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figures → criticise → intervention
Some claimed he had ‘overstepped the mark’ given the non-partisan, ceremonial nature of the presidency, but senior figures including then Tánaiste Leo Varadkar acknowledged affordability and housing pressures posed significant challenges.
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affordability → claim → challenges
However, in his planning submission, the former president said that housing – ‘so badly needed by so many’ – should not come at the cost of road safety.
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housing → say → safety
Mr Higgins wrote: ‘I believe that land use planning, including making provisions for housing, so badly needed by so many, should not come at the cost of safe movement on our roads or sustainable planning which has public support.
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which → write → support
‘We are not condemned to a binary choice between providing for necessary housing and engaging in appropriate planning.
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We → condemn → planning
…and 27 more, not listed.
The Aporia
