Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

Section 6(1) proposes inter alia to insert the following:

1C.--- References in the Foreshore Acts 1933 to 2009 to foreshore belonging to the State shall be construed as references to foreshore which for the time being belongs to the State, including foreshore so belonging whether by virtue of Article 10.2 of the Constitution or otherwise.".

What is meant by the phrase "which for the time being belongs to the State"? I would like the Minister of State to give an assurance that ownership by the people of the entire foreshore as outlined in Articles 10.2, 10.2 and 10.3 of the Constitution is not affected in any way. This provision disturbingly suggests that the State might dispose of the foreshore. I understand that when licensing the State gives a 99-year lease. There is, in some of the older Foreshore Acts, the dangerous possibility of adversarial possession by people who are effectively squatting on a public property. I ask the Minister to clarify that there is no mitigation of rights in this regard. I am interested in how the wording "which for the time being belongs to the State" came to be. The Minister has not in any of his speeches so far spoken about the vesting, sale or disposal by the State to private interests of what is public property.

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