Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

People devote themselves to a particular subject such as registering an entitlement, easement or potential burden on someone else's house or garden, something previously deemed to be a public property or an unregistered property - a distinction is made between registered and unregistered property. Given the cases that have gone through the courts, I would have thought this area is open to a great deal of argument in the courts - very expensive argument I might add and this is no reflection on the legal eagles who would participate in such an argument.

I question the wisdom of making it overly simple for somebody to register his or her interest in another person's property. Some account should be taken of the manner in which such an event occurs. If enough people were so interested in other people's property the famous old rural Irish tradition of a legacy from the United States would become non-existent because somebody would have eyed up the property beforehand, identified the fact that nobody was immediately around and that there was the potential for somebody to register an interest in such a way as to argue he or she had an entitlement to it knowing full well he or she had no entitlement whatsoever. I have serious concerns about the degree to which this intended improvement in the legislation might be abused. As an experienced legal practitioner, the Minister will be aware of the many hotly contested cases which have been thrashed out in the courts on the basis of a perceived or acquired entitlement to another person's property. For example, in my constituency if a person has obtained sand or gravel from his neighbour's gravel pit, it could easily transpire that he has acquired an entitlement thereafter because he has established a use. I ask the Minister to indicate how such matters will be thrashed out.

The Bill proposes beneficial improvements in the area of domestic violence. All Deputies will have encountered cases of individuals failing to observe protection orders and barring orders and being held in contempt of court. Incidentally, I was almost invited to be in contempt of court in a particular case some time ago. I attended court at the request of the defendant when evidence without basis in fact was proffered. The wise judge was not prepared to accept it, however. While one cannot legislate for such circumstances, the fact remains that in such circumstances individuals may be disadvantaged and incur significant expenditure extricating themselves from the position in which they find themselves.

I note the number of convictions for failure to produce identification increased from three in 2005 to 144 in 2006, 250 in 2007 and 291 in 2008. This is a substantial evolution, for want of a better description, of the application of the law. The majority of such convictions arise from immigration matters. For example, some people deliberately go AWOL because they have been refused refugee status, while others are re-circulated so many times within the system they no longer know whether they are in or out of the jurisdiction. I am concerned by the dramatic rise in only four years in the number of convictions secured for failure to produce identification.

I discussed burdens, easements and rights of way. The right of an individual to register a burden on another person's property requires the production of significant supporting information. I would not agree to the establishment of such a right unless it was clear that the person on whose property the burden would be placed would not have his or her rights undermined as a result of a clever connivance made over a number of years by an individual who had a precise plan to register such a burden.

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