Mr. Robert Moss:

The conacre agreement specific to Ireland has been used successfully by Dublin City Council and other local authorities. It gives access to a site for 11 months, after which it must be vacated by all the gardeners for a month. That hiatus means there is not continuous occupation of the site. This protects the land owner, usually the local authority, in this case Dublin City Council, from any claims of ownership from a third party who has been making interim use of the site. From a legal point of view there is a lease framework that can be used, called a conacre agreement.

There will always be emotion when a site has been used as a community garden, has been of great value and has provided a community resource for five or ten years when the owner wants to develop it. That is not an excuse for us to be in a situation in which we are locked out of our own house because we cannot do anything with the vacant sites in Dublin for fear of planning blight, which has been the case for the past ten years. There are vacant sites, some in NAMA administration and some not, that nobody is allowed to touch for ten or 20 years because there is a wish to develop them further down the line. It is absurd. While there will always be arguments for doing nothing, it is not a responsible way forward.