Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I support amendment No. 422. I make a similar point, that the change in this Bill is a serious weakening. As Deputy Matthews said, these are established rights of way. It is not about creating new ones or anything like that. The current obligation under the legislation is for these to be marked out in the development plan maps. It is a "shall". We have gone from that to "may". What we are looking at here is development management statements, in terms of amendment No. 422 on obligation to prior objectives for management of areas as structured. That is a significant weakening, in my view. This is a very minimalist matter we are looking at, trying to get some sort of restoration of the existing wording. However, we are way behind. For example, in the UK there are legally-protected rights of way all over the country. In fact, it is possible to walk the entire coast of the UK at this point. There are right of way paths designated around the entire coast, not to mention, everywhere else. We are a million miles away from where we should be on this and this is minimalist, just trying to get back what is in the existing legislation, even though that only refers to a small number of recognised rights of way. This is an important provision all the same.