Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Like many other Deputies, I have been caught a bit on the hop with the speed of this, not just today but in catching up with the issue. I am quite happy to admit that.

I agree with Deputy Connolly on the seaweed issue. It may be of interest to people, particularly those who are Bob Marley fans, to learn that his favourite food, which he thought was going to be available in abundance in Ireland, was a seaweed dish called Irish moss which is very popular in Jamaica. He assumed that when he got to Ireland, Irish moss as a food would be widely available but he was very disappointed to learn that it was not to be found anywhere. It is an interesting point about this huge resource with many potential benefits that we do not take half seriously enough. There are many other issues about the harvesting of seaweed, how we handle it and access to the foreshore for people who gather it. I believe that Deputy Connolly is completely correct in calling for a seaweed policy. The Government should take this seriously. It may seem silly but when one looks into it in any way at all, it is a very serious point. It is a resource, a pastime, and as Bob Marley understood, a food and healthy form of sustenance. It may have impacts such as the reduction of methane from cattle that are fed it. I have named just a few possible uses.

An interesting story about rights of way that comes to mind as I desperately leaf through my notes is that one of my political heroes, Karl Marx, was propelled into political activism by the issue of rights of way. This might be a warning to the Government. If it does not want a proliferation of people like Karl Marx in Ireland as a result of disputes over rights of way, it will need to get right the issue of how we handle and register rights of way. In the case of Karl Marx, it involved a campaign over the enclosure of woodland which had previously held rights of way for farmers, rural workers and people in rural areas of Germany. They had enjoyed completely free and unfettered access to woodlands to gather deadwood and to hunt for animals for food and sustenance. As part of the enclosure, commodification and privatisation of the common land and the forests, the previously free and unfettered access to woodlands became hampered by people fencing off particular lands and forests. This became a very significant area of dispute. There were pitched battles in Germany in the 1840s over access to woodlands and to what had previously been seen as common areas. It was that particular issue which politically radicalised Karl Marx and set him on the road to becoming, essentially, the pioneer of modern socialism. If the Minister does not want more revolutionaries, the Government may need to get the issue of rights of way right.

Obviously, I am not in a rural constituency, although a small part of my constituency is rural as one heads up into the Dublin Mountains and the border with County Wicklow. Some of the issues that are more familiar to people in rural areas have, nonetheless, an impact in my constituency. The foreshore issue has such an impact. For example, there was a right of way off Sorrento Terrace in Dalkey which was used for access down towards the foreshore facing Dalkey Island. When this was fenced off, it caused absolute uproar in the area. Our failure to delineate rights of way properly results in disputes. I understand that landowners have rights and concerns.

The responsibility for these things becoming very problematic, and rights of way not being fully protected, registered and mapped, ultimately lies with the Government. If it was more proactive in ensuring these things were properly mapped, there was a registration process and we did not end up with people engaging in protracted pitched legal battles and disputes between neighbours and within communities, it would be a good thing.

I am aware that we seem to be far less thorough than many countries in Europe in guaranteeing the rights of people to access rights of way and common land and to ramble freely across the country. In Germany, people have the right to roam freely in forested areas as well as unenclosed land like heaths and marshes. The freedom to walk and run in Austria's forests is enshrined in federal law. In Switzerland, people have the right to roam under the civil code, which extends to forests and pastureland, whether private or publicly owned. Swedish people have a right to enjoy nature everywhere, except in private gardens close to people's homes and on cultivated land. However, in Ireland things are far more restrictive. Something has to be done about that.

I think I am correct in saying that Sport Ireland Outdoors is responsible for waymarked trails in Ireland. There are about 40 waymarked trails, which seems to be a very low number when one considers the degree to which people have rediscovered the importance of walking in the countryside, on coastlines and in forests during the Covid pandemic. There are a few waymarked areas in my area, including the Wicklow Way and the Dublin Mountains Way. Due to the fact they are marked, people know where they are and people make a lot of use of the trails, which is a very good thing. They are a real boost to the available amenities for people. They enable healthy exercise, which has numerous benefits. Walking is a healthy and positive activity.

However, it appears a remarkably low number of trails and rights of way have been marked. I understand Ordnance Survey Ireland maps do not include references to rights of way, something which occurred to me recently during the campaign on Killegar Wood, which is a Coillte forest. As a result of a tip-off we received from walkers, we discovered it was being advertised for sale even though it is part of a marked walkway, the Dublin Mountains Way. Were it not for walkers who use the route regularly, I would never have heard about it and the matter would not have been raised in the House. Coillte would not have been forced to have to justify itself, and subsequently agree it had made the wrong decision and abandon the sale. As a result, a public amenity forest, right of way and marked trail have been saved from potential privatisation. Those who know where the trail is and use it regularly have done a huge service to the people of the area. Following the tremendous response to the campaign, many people have asked about the location of the walkway and have said they want to go there. I did not say this last week because we were so pleased to have stopped the sale, but the woodland should be developed as a community woodland.

When we discussed forests last week, it was noted that there is a commitment to develop community woodlands in forest policy, but the delivery on the establishment of community woodlands has been pitifully poor. A very small number have been developed. In the case of Killegar Wood, a popular outcry, spearheaded by walkers, led Coillte to abandon the sale and reconsider the use of the forest. In the conversation I had with Coillte, it hinted that it would move towards biodiversity usage and the development of a community woodland. That should be happening on a much more proactive basis across the country in a systematic way. We should be identifying, mapping and properly registering land with the State, possibly via local authorities, taking a proactive lead to identify where rights of way are located and making sure they are marked and the public is aware of them. There should also be a way to deal with any possible dispute that may arise because, as I want to repeat, I understand that landowners and so on have legitimate concerns.

I welcome that the Bill is dealing with the possible cliff we were going over at the end of the month. I commend Senator Alice Mary Higgins, who I believe was instrumental in ensuring the Government was made aware of the need to do this. Beyond this Bill, we need, in a far more proactive way, to understand the vital importance of rights of way, access issues, rambling and so on. That is needed even more after Covid with the rediscovery by many people of the importance of walkways. We need a proper system to protect them and deal with disputes in a manner which is the least onerous on people in cases where there may be disputes over those particular things.

See this speech in context