Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am a very strong supporter of the concept the Deputy is talking about.

I know about this first hand from the collaboration and co-operation among communities in localities along particular routes. For instance, I had the privilege of launching the official opening of the Beara-Breifne Way between Castletownbere, County Cork, and Breifne, County Leitrim, the route of the march of O'Sullivan Bere in 1602. That 500 km route was developed by communities, Leader groups and parish groups using different funds and is available for people to walk and cycle. An opportunity arose in the west to develop the old railway line between Westport and Achill Island which had lain dormant, disused and overgrown for more than 80 years and because 127 farmers had agreed to open up the route, the local authority, Leader groups and communities got together and the Great Western Greenway is used by thousands of people very week.

As the Deputy has correctly pointed out, there is a brilliant opportunity in the Derry-Donegal area. I suggest that if he wants to lead a charge, a feasibility analysis be carried out of what it might mean, the number of viaducts to be repaired, bridges built and plantations removed and the provision of access, where land is in private ownership, in order that the route can be allowed to run through or around it, as the case may be. The Deputy needs this to be done first. As the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport has pointed out, INTERREG funds can be used in a creative way to support projects such as this and communities and local authorities are all for them.

Were this to become a reality, one would find that thousands of people would use it, no more than the opportunity presented by the canal towpath between Dublin and Athlone, about which I have spoken to the Minister, or the old rail track through Barnesmore Gap. These are spectacular areas and there is also an interest in developing a route between Glenbeigh and Cahirsiveen in County Kerry and around Clifden, County Galway. There are extensive areas to which this could apply. As co-chairman of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, he should get local authorities and local groups together. It should be considered.

The Erne project involves a waterway rather than a greenway, but these projects are all in the interests of people who want to be out and about involved in healthy activity. They are safe, opportune and well used when they become a reality. We are an outdoor people by nature and all of these facilities around the country provide a necklace of opportunities that we support to engage in healthy leisure activities and seek enjoyment. It is a case of getting the feasibility study right for the Deputy's project and then examining how creatively the different funding arrangements can be put in place, North and South. It would be a wonderful example of practical, pragmatic, cross-Border activity.

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