Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the first question relating to the trust between farmers, Departments and Government, that dates back a long way. It is very simple. The Deputy is a rural man, like me. Sometimes the State thinks it can just walk into people's land and property. Sometimes it just does not talk to farmers. I will give the committee a very simple explanation of where it works and where it does not. In the Deputy's county of Galway we have provided a great deal of funding for the walks from Dublin to Athlone and Athlone to Galway. That was handed over to the National Roads Authority, which thought it could treat the farmers like it were treating people. It was taking over land for roads, using compulsory purchase orders and things of that nature. That does not work. We had to suspend that scheme because it was going into green land, dividing farms and land. One cannot do that.

Take another example of the greenway from Westport to Newport to Mulranny and on to Achill. Everybody said that it would not work, it would not happen and that we could not get buy-in from the farmers, but we did, simply because officials and State agencies went and talked to the farmers.

They talked to the communities. Where there was a difficulty, they got the communities to talk to the people who had the difficulties. Eventually, they were ironed out. Whatever scheme we do, instead of these people reading about it in the newspapers or hearing announcements from Ministers, Deputies or whatever the case may be, we need to talk, consult and work with the landowners because it is their land and we need their help, support and buy-in. Deputy Ó Cuív introduced a very good scheme, the walks scheme, which worked very well. There was very little compensation but it was not about that. It was about respect. The one word that is not used often enough about people's land is "respect" because it is their land. We need to have co-operation from the farmers for any buy-in. Whatever schemes we introduce, we need first to sit down with the farmers, whether it is my Department, the local authorities or whatever State agency is dealing with whatever we are doing. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, will deal with the two other issues.