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

I am going to take 15 minutes because I spent many years working on this particular topic and I hope I can add to the debate. I do not agree with the Bill but I welcome the opportunity to debate the issue. We have to go back to 2003 when there was a huge dispute and signs were erected by farmers around the country refusing land access to people. At that time the then Government set up Comhairle na Tuaithe. We brought together farmers, Coillte Teoranta, all the statutory agencies, Bord Fáilte, the Department, Keep Ireland Open, the Mountaineering Council and all the people interested in walking. On the day of the first meeting I will always remember the lunch because certain members of the walking groups would not sit with the farmers. We started from a point of significant conflict. We worked and dealt with the issues in a systematic manner. The first issue on which we got agreement was the "leave no trace" principle, in other words that walkers would respect the land on which they walked. No dogs would be allowed without a leash, no leaving of litter, that they would respect the land around people's private property, would not damage gates, stiles, fences and so on. I got a parliamentary reply which refers to the issue of access to land and possible legislation. I have to say that is cracking a nut with a sledgehammer because there was and is another way of doing it. One can get access cheaper, easier and with goodwill other than by trying to do it through legislation. Before I go there it is important to echo what Deputy Dowds said.

I am delighted the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform is present rather than the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. It is my firm belief, having worked in the sector for a long time, that we can create rural recreation of all types, whether rock climbing, butterfly counting or bird watching. There are a million things one can do in the countryside. If one adds marine leisure and all the things one can do on water, we could create 6,000 sustainable jobs but we need to invest in facilities and infrastructure and in the development of the actual product. There is a greater opportunity in this sector than in any other to create jobs because we have a country that is ideal for so many activities. It has such a diverse countryside between water and land and, therefore, I agree we can move. The visitor figures quoted by Deputy Dowds for last year of 750,000 were only 200,000 when Comhairle na Tuaithe was set up. The work that took place in advertising development walk ways was significant. There is one slight error in Deputy Dowds' contribution. I do not blame him but it is a fundamental error. In regard to the walkway scheme which we set up, no money was paid for access. The Deputy said money was paid for access and maintenance. We gave farmers or landowners a choice to maintain the walkway to our specification, at our costing, or allow us to do it through a rural social scheme. Any money paid was purely for the purpose of maintaining the walkway. Members who have walked the Western Way and many other walks in the past will be aware that if one part of the walk becomes damaged one cannot get through and one could be up in the middle of a mountain. Therefore, the maintenance of walks such as the Sheeps Head walk in the Beara Peninsula and all of the walks is vital in terms of the quality of the product. Rather than put somebody else on one's land we said we would give them the specification and indicate what we wanted done and would pay for the walk. It was not payment for access because I refused utterly to pay for access.

I wish to speak on the issue of a law and access to mountains. I think we would all agree that the present situation is totally unsatisfactory because no stranger coming to Ireland would know which mountain they can climb and which mountain they cannot climb. Every weekend on the way from Cornamona to my clinic in Maam Cross I see people on the Maamturk mountains because all those in the know, know where to park and the carparks on the road and they head up over the Maamturks, going crossways towards Leenane. That is all privately owned land and I have never seen anybody being prevented from walking on that land. We know that but the question is whether tourists know it. A fair answer is that there is no map and no details are available and we need to deal with the issue.

We spent some time examining the law in England and Scotland. I remember going to Scotland and spending a day speaking to the National Farmers Union of Scotland, those promoting the walk and the Government - all the different sides. The problem is that Scotland is so radically different from Ireland as there are vast expanses of nothing in the north of Scotland. Its law simply provides that one can walk any mountain anywhere except in the curtilage of a house. I asked for a definition of the "curtilage of a house" because that is where a dispute would arise. However, they said there was no need to do that because there are so few houses in these areas that it does not make any difference. Everybody knows that the foot of every hill and mountain in Ireland is all farmed land and everybody knows every inch of it. We have a much more vibrant rural population that Scotland.

We also looked at the English system. The advice we got back was that it is incredibly cumbersome and incredibly difficult to get through and that, in fact, it leads to a whole lot of delays. We then devised an Irish solution to an Irish problem based on the five years of operation of Comhairle na Tuaithe. We are aware that 80% or 90% of farmers have no problem with people walking on the hills provided they access them correctly. Therefore, we set up a pilot scheme, which was progressing rapidly when I was Minister, in Mount Gable which is between Clonbur and Cornamona where I knew the farmers and, therefore, I knew it would work and in Carrauntohill, in Kerry, which is probably the most walked mountain in the country. The idea which was quite simple was to get rural social schemes and projects to put in car parks and agree the access points. Therefore, nobody went through a farmer's land, his lowland or field, or his back garden to get to the mountain - they go in at an agreed access point on the mountain and come out at another point. Nobody had any problem with that. The farmers agreed voluntarily and there was no problem in getting agreement. They agreed voluntarily as to what was above the line of the fields and what was open roam area. It was amazing that within two months we had built the car parks around Mount Gable, all of which were put in by the rural social scheme. It got to work immediately. Who is on the rural social scheme? Farmers are on the rural social scheme: it is a scheme for farmers. They were local farmers who lived around the hill. Everybody was buying in and there was no problem. I understand the same happened in Carrauntohill. My intention was to set up these two pilot schemes as models to get the insurance and to map these not only on physical maps but on apps for one's iPhone. The idea was quite simple that no matter where one went in the country, whether on a designated walk, such as the Sheeps Head walk, or any other walk or to roam a mountain, one could go into one's app and every place that is open would be on the app and would show the entrance points.

It would also show the exit points because sometimes on a mountain it can be hard to find one's way back to where one started from. I keep putting parliamentary questions about this issue to the Minister, as it is a very small technical snag. In County Donegal a woman had fallen off a cliff and been seriously injured and in a case taken to the Supreme Court it ruled that she had taken a risk. This made it virtually impossible or unlikely that anybody would ever succeed in a claim because one would have to prove reckless disregard on the part of the landowner. Landowners have told me that they recognise the risk is minimal and asked whether they could take out insurance covering the hills in the same way as they could insure walkways. That is a reasonable proposition and the cost would not be high. It would not save the farmer from the likelihood of having to pay compensation or facing a large increase in his or her insurance premium, but it would save him or her hassle if somebody was stupid enough to try to bring a case to court. Members know the hassle involved in defending court cases. One cannot stop anybody making a claim against anyone else, even if one makes it impossible in law to succeed, which it virtually is. I understand that rather than having a private insurer, a proposal has been made that seems to have been doing the rounds forever that the State Claims Agency handle anybody who tries to make a claim. I understand this proposal is somewhere in the system and continues month after month. I hope the Minister will go back and see whether he could help the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government by getting the State Claims Agency to deal with this issue and take on nominal liability which is not a real risk because the Act is very clear and case law in the Supreme Court makes it virtually impossible to make a claim. If the Minister checks, he will find that the Office of Public Works subsequently had a claim in the Circuit Court which was thrown out because of the prior Supreme Court ruling on the issue. He will find that it is what I call the "null set", in other words, a person can make a claim but he or she is very unlikely to succeed.

I deal with farmers up and down the country and have been working with them for many years. It was and still is my view that once the Department gets over the insurance hurdle, farmers and rural communities will queue to participate in the scheme and offer the hills and mountains. When the former Minister, Deputy Quinn, introduced the previous Bill, he specifically mentioned somebody in Connemara whom he claimed was refusing access. I was a little surprised by this because I knew the family and they were very reasonable people. I visited them to ask what the problem was and the farmer told me that he could not get the tractor in because people were parking their cars along the one mile road up to the house. He said he had no objection to people walking the hills and subsequently asked me whether we could set up a scheme whereby he could become professionally involved in guiding people across the mountains from one valley to the next. There is goodwill. I was engaged with Comhar na Tuaithe. Unfortunately, I think the Minister does not attend its meetings. The reality was that we were able to get farmers to buy-in using this method, which would be better for tourists. We want this to be Ireland of the welcomes. We want a situation that is well publicised and clear on maps covering 80% to 90% of the hills. We want a positive buy-in in order that visitors receive a céad míle fáilte if they meet the local farmer while gathering sheep on the hill. As long as they adhere to the access points, leave no traces on the hill and behaved wel, they will not only be permitted on the land but welcomed by the owners.

The Bill is helpful because it brings the issue to the fore. However, the Department would be better off in resolving the outstanding issues and seeking agreement on the agreed method. I agree that the status quois untenable.

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