Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, congratulate the Minister on the birth of her child and wish her well for the future. I am glad the deadline of 30 November has been set aside. I called for this when I was first elected to the House in early 2016. I also called for it numerous times this year here in the Chamber. I told the Taoiseach that things were not working as they should as a result of Covid and the coronavirus and asked him at least to extend the deadline to account for that period. This is better. The Government is going to do something more and I appreciate that. I realise it will not be very easy.

The deadline was wrong in many ways. First, not everyone knew about it. Those who did were very worried about it and did not know what to do. Whatever rules are made next June, they need to be publicised so that everyone will know about them. There needs to be a lot of interaction in here, out there and everywhere to ensure that we get it right. Whether determined by long usage, which we are now reverting to for the interim period, or by another method, there will be people today, tomorrow and every other day seeking to rectify their situations. I know of an incident where a Dublin couple bought a house in rural Kerry and, after six or seven years, wanted to sell it. They had to get the signatures of 14 people along the road before the sale could go through. There have been disputes and rows over rights of way. They have been a recipe for rows that lasted years and years. I know of one case not too far from where I live where one of the people involved in the dispute over a right of way lost some of his faculties and was never the same man again after that serious row.

Having to institute legal proceeding against neighbours or having to get them to sign documents is all wrong. I advise neighbours to go as far as they can towards agreement. People should ask their neighbours if they mind them registering rights of way over their land. They should go that far because letters from one neighbour to another were coming out from solicitors' offices and that was very hurtful and caused rancour and dispute in respect of rights of way.

The deadline was also wrong in another way. People had to have been using these rights of way for 12 years. Some people may have been using them for ten or 11 years by this 30 November.

As a result, they would not have been able to register them, which would have meant they would have had to have gone back to the start to regain their long use status. That aspect of the 2009 Act was wrong.

There is an awful lot of work to be done to ensure we get this right. Disputes over rights of way and boundary ditches have been keeping the courts busy for a long time. We need to get it right. It needs to be advertised and some allowance needs to be given for submissions to be made, whether independently, by parties or whatever, to see how the new system will operate. Many people must be allowed to have an input to ensure we get it right this time. Issues such as the width of the right of way and so on need to be sorted out because otherwise there will be a need for more court cases, which are very costly for whoever loses. We should avoid that and have some simpler system in order that people will not have to resort to that.

I thank the Government for acceding to my request to extend the deadline until next year when it will bring forward a new proposal.

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