Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is not the first interaction I have had with the Minister in the past while but I do not think I have welcomed her back to the House, so I do so now. She now has one of the most difficult jobs anyone has ever had, not to mention the difficulties that relate to ministerial office.

There is general agreement across the House regarding the fact this legislation is necessary, given we are about to hit a cliff edge. Even so, it was pointed out by some of my colleagues, and we have proposed amendments relating to this, that the Bill will not necessarily get us to the point of pre-2009 as regards rights of way. We all want a review, best practice and a non-adversarial system in respect of arbitration, which, as has been generally acknowledged, works perfectly as long as everybody is willing to work alongside one another. Insofar as we can, that is what we need to put together.

We have all dealt with many legacy issues relating to rights of way. Some of the issues that were mentioned relate to badly recorded information on the Land Registry by the PRAI and the significant issues that has caused for homeowners and others. I have encountered issues where strange anomalies have happened, such as a small piece of ground that seemed to be owned by a homeowner being taken in charge by the council, where it did not matter until it mattered. In trying to get such issues sorted out, people can involve themselves in a considerable level of bureaucracy and may not necessarily get to point B without a great deal of pain, difficulty and time. These are all issues we need to deal with.

In the context of rights of way, access points and so on, the issue of mobility we hear about in respect of planning sounds great and we all want to live in a world of active movement and travel. We need to facilitate people in walking or whatever mode of travel they choose, but we have seen the difficulties this has caused, particularly in certain housing estates and so on where it has created rat runs. We need an overall way of dealing with this. In this context, there is the issue of insurance and the associated difficulties, and the Minister needs to move forward with the duty of care legislation, which is badly required at this time.

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