Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Returning to the mountain access scheme, is there an individual written agreement between each farmer and the Department, or some relevant agency, specifying what is agreed? In other words, first, dealing with the insurance, has every farmer received a copy of the insurance? Where I live, they certainly have not received it. This refers to the area that is covered, that is open. It is no good saying that the mountain is open. My understanding is that there was to be a defined area that would generally be above the line of the enclosed fields. This is about how the mountain may be accessed. Again, my understanding was that there was to be agreed access at a certain point and no other way in or out. Stiles were to be provided at the access points and that was part of the agreement.

Parking, as the Department officials will know, has been a very big bone of contention where people access hills and leave cars parked where tractors cannot get past and people cannot get to their houses, and so on. There was meant to be an app so that the hillwalker would know exactly where was open for walking and where was covered by the scheme and, of course, that every effort would be made through the RRO and all of the hillwalking and other organisations that are involved in Comhairle na Tuaithe in the walking side of the equation. There are people on both sides of the equation but Mountaineering Ireland and Keep Ireland Open are also there. This is to ensure that everybody would be compliant with Leave No Trace principles with respect to dogs, litter, fires and all the rest. There would also be an RRO locally if any of these requirements were infracted. Is that agreement in existence and is it signed with each landownerr? Where I live, there seems to be some disquiet about this and there were some recent issues which the officials may have heard about.