Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I warmly congratulate Deputy Dowds on producing this fine legislation. It contains innovative measures which, if enacted, would bring a new dimension to access to land in this country. I commend him on the work he carried out to produce the Bill and on the valuable briefing he sent to Deputies outlining the case for reform of the law relating to access to land. As a walker and a resident of Howth, I know the importance of having access to well protected, safe and properly maintained walking routes. I agree with the approach pursued by Deputy Dowds in the Access to the Countryside Bill to have a formal system to provide for permissive schemes to designate access land, with these schemes being managed by local authorities across the country.

As Deputy Dowds has said, there is huge potential in respect of further gains that could be made from walking tourism for the Irish economy. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, emphasised that as well. Fáilte Ireland recently reported that the number of overseas visitors to Ireland increased by 7.4% in the first quarter of this year. We also know that the number of Irish holiday makers choosing to leave Ireland for their holidays has dropped. More people are holidaying, and walking, at home. Deputy Dowds also referred in his briefing to the value of walking tourism to our sister nation Scotland, which has a much more proactive system to encourage walking tourism. I also agree that as a nation with high levels of obesity, and I must get match fit myself, we need to do more to promote healthy living practices. Walking, which is one of the cheapest ways of getting fit, is increasingly important for us, particularly now that so many citizens have vastly reduced levels of discretionary spending in their income.

As Deputy Dowds pointed out, the 440,000 hectares managed by Coillte are a significant portion of the public lands which are currently available for our citizens for walking. However, I fear that the proposed sale of our Coillte forests, which I have consistently opposed in this House, would result in a massive reduction in the lands available for our citizens to use as public walkways. The Minister for hopeful announcements, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, told us a few weeks ago that the "mooted" sale of the Coillte forests might not now take place. Of course, the mooting of the sale of Coillte was by the Government itself, and some of the Fine Gael Ministers appear to believe that the sale of the forestry is part of the NewERA process. I believe the sale would be disastrous. It would put enormous pressure on rights of way and walkways across much of Ireland. In that context, the Bill before us is particularly valuable.

Section 3 of the Bill outlines the power of a county council to declare land to be access land. I welcome the provisions in subsection (3) of that section concerning lands which are and are not access land. I note, for example, that the subsection outlines the various categories of access land, such as land that is more than 200 m above sea level, land within 5 m of a river or canal and open and uncultivated land. I welcome the exclusions outlined in the subsection so that cultivated land and improved or semi-improved grassland, among other categories, are expressly excluded from the scope of land which may be designated as access land. I am also supportive of the provisions of the Bill which exempt landowners whose lands have been designated by a county council as access land from liability for accidents that may occur to walkers on their land. That is a particularly important provision.

We must be mindful of Irish history and the attachment so many of our citizens feel to their land. We clearly must respect landowners who want to protect their land. I firmly believe that the provisions of the Bill exempting owners of land from liability is integral to bringing about the possibility of opening up more Irish land to walkers from our own country and elsewhere. I note that Deputy Dowds has referenced approaches to access to land in other jurisdictions, particularly in Norway and Sweden. We could learn a great deal in this regard from those jurisdictions.

Apart from the walks on the Howth Peninsula and in the rural and formerly rural areas of south-west Dublin, from where I come and which Deputy Dowds now happily represents, I am most familiar with walking across amenity and wilderness areas in the Beara Peninsula, along the Beara Way, and similar districts of Kerry, Connemara, north-west Mayo and County Wexford. In Beara and other similar locations, landowners in the lower access areas have generally been generous to walkers and have facilitated connections to higher amenity walking lands. I noted recently the proposal to develop a walking route following the footsteps of one of our great chieftains, O'Sullivan Beare, in 1601, from Beara through Munster and Connacht to Breifne in Leitrim. There are superb walks on offer in our country, as outlined by Deputy Dowds and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin.

The Howth Peninsula in my constituency has been a favourite walking location for visitors and residents for centuries. Anything up to half a million visitors from across north Dublin and the whole mid-Leinster region visit Howth town and the peninsula each year. Thousands of visitors to Dublin and Ireland, particularly those on city breaks, are rightly directed by Fáilte Ireland to spend a few hours in Howth and its wonderful wilderness and country area, which is uniquely close to the centre of the capital city. Cork city has also been gifted with some magnificent lands very close by. I estimated a few years ago that more than 100,000 walkers use the old tramline walkway alone each year. Hundreds of thousands of other visitors walk the historic rights of way and walkways across the east and west mountains, as we call them in Howth. The spectacular views across Dublin Bay and Baldoyle Bay from the Ben of Howth and the west mountain are among the most extraordinary in Ireland and all of Europe.

Residents, visitors and walkers in Howth are very grateful for the support and welcome received from the Gaisford-St. Lawrence family at Howth Castle and the Howth estate over the decades. The historic efforts of the Howth estate have also been supported by the old Dublin County Council and latterly by Fingal County Council. I was a strong supporter from the mid-1980s of Howth Sutton 2000, an organisation led by the great Jean Finn that campaigned successfully, from 1996, for special amenity area status for Howth. Famously, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, ordered Fingal County Council to designate Howth as a special amenity area. Perhaps a small plaque should be erected to him somewhere on the routeways of Howth. The council did not want to designate the area but the Minister made it happen. I was honoured to be a board member of SEMPA, the programme to protect the environment of the Howth-Malahide ward, for many years subsequently. Great credit must also go to Howth Pathways, led by Kevin Rickard, David Caulfield and Caoimhín O'Laoi, who have made phenomenal efforts over the past decade and more to preserve and maintain the magnificent walkways of the peninsula. Kevin, David and their committee have had to battle hard to obtain the necessary funding from Fingal County Council to restore the tramline and to protect the walkways of the east and west mountains. I have been very active in supporting them, including in this House. They have also received terrific support from Howth Sutton Community Council, Mayor Cian O'Callaghan of Fingal County Council and outgoing former mayor and councillor, the great Peter Coyle of Portmarnock.

Over the past few years, there have been disturbing efforts by a tiny minority of landowners and households to alienate parts of the tramline boundary and alienate and privatise a section of historic walkway on the east mountain. On at least two locations on the tramline, adjoining owners have allegedly attempted to privatise what is clearly publicly owned high-amenity land. Even more extraordinarily, a landowner has allegedly attempted to extinguish completely a right of way on the east mountain. The location concerned reminds Howth residents, walkers and visitors of the huge planning battle in the mid-1990s when the proposal by Treasury Holdings to construct a modern building on the cliffs at Heather Cottage was fiercely opposed by a coalition led by Howth Sutton 2000 and Jean Finn. People rightly feared that it would create a bad precedent and that it was the first step to privatising the east mountain and its historic walkways. There are those who would like to cover the whole peninsula in concrete and turn it into a sort of Cap Ferrat with exclusive gated communities. As a resident representative, I have always opposed this bitterly and strongly. Howth is for everybody.

The walkway now under threat is a primary walkway and right of way from time out of mind on all of the oldest Howth maps, including those used by Howth Sutton 2000, Howth Pathways and the Howth Sutton Community Council. Maps from the 1970s and 1980s used in the SAAO campaign from the late 1980s clearly show the walkway now under threat as part of an historic loop walkway linking the Howth summit and Upper Cliff Road walkways to the lower cliff path near Casana Rock. I have a copy of one of these maps in my possession. The interests of the public and walkway visitors in this matter have been courageously defended by Howth residents Brendan Keegan and Pat Hennessy, Howth Pathways and many local residents and walking visitors. Unfortunately, Fingal County Council has not been proactive in protecting this east mountain and other walkways, and that was one of the reasons I urged the recent local government constituency review to transfer Howth Peninsula, Baldoyle and mid-Sutton lock stock and barrel back to Dublin city. The Acting Chairman might have seen me reading the recent local constituencies report. Despite the clear evidence outlined, Fingal County Council has failed so far to protect the rights of walkers and residents on the threatened east mountain right of way, and a section 5 instrument to An Bord Pleanála has been invoked. For the sake of the future of Howth as a wonderful amenity for residents and hundreds of thousands of welcome visitors, I hope the board will now accept the clear evidence that this walkway is an historic right of way from time out of mind and is clearly identified by the maps prepared for the Howth SAAO in 1996 and 1997. Fingal County Council also needs a clear change of direction in regard to implementing the SAAO relentlessly and protecting its buffer zone and network of historic walkways.

Given the attempted alienation on the east mountain, it is now timely to upgrade the levels of legal protection for the walkways and high areas of Howth and Sutton. This legislation will be very helpful. Solutions that must be examined include national park designation. I have raised this recently with Fingal County Council management and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. The peninsula is also the landing place for one of the first groups of our Irish ancestors after the last Ice Age about 7,000 or 8,000 years ago. President Higgins unveiled a monument to this effect on Sutton Strand recently. Given the area’s unique ecology and environmental beauty, we might also seek international amenity status for all of Howth to protect it forever.

I welcome the provisions in section 9 of the Bill which link the county council's functions in respect of designating access land to its role in planning. It will be a very good function given the new model of council organisation that will obtain after the local elections next year. Under Deputy Dowds’s legislation, councils will have an opportunity to review all access to amenity lands in their administrative areas. An access programme, as provided for in the Bill, would also give local authorities an annual opportunity to review that provision.

I also welcome the provisions of the Bill in section 11, which establish the countryside advisory council to oversee the operation of land designations by the various county councils. It would obviously have a vital role in ensuring a consistent and national approach to land designation and could be a useful resource for local authorities.

I warmly commend Deputy Dowds and his staff for their extensive work on this Bill and for introducing it to the House. I congratulate the Deputy. Despite what the Minister, Deputy Howlin, said, the Government should accept the Bill today or at least come forward with legislation, in conjunction with Deputy Dowds, that could be implemented before the end of this Dáil session. Access to our countryside and walkways is imperative. Existing public rights of way, such as those in Howth, are deserving of full protection. We need to examine ways of increasing opportunities for citizens and overseas visitors to gain access to our beautiful countryside and benefit from the spectacular scenery that our country has to offer.

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