Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for going to the efforts he has gone to and I again thank the Ceann Comhairle for facilitating this debate. I understand the problem but, unfortunately, some of us have been around Castletown Estate when it was in its previous ownership, in Connolly-Carew's time. We got to know all the people who worked on the estate and we listened to their queries over a number of years. We got along with them and they are decent, nice people. There is no need for anybody to impose a restriction on the people who have enjoyed the facilities at Castletown all their lives, particularly given the State now owns 230 acres of the lands and the house. The State is now an equal landowner. If two private landowners were in dispute about a right of way, it would have been resolved long ago, and it would have to be resolved.

Reference was made to another case in the country, in County Sligo, where a private landowner had always owned the property. These two cases are not analogous at all. He or his predecessor had always owned the property. In this case, however, there are two independent landowners, namely, the State and a private landowner. The question has to be asked as to who wins the case. In the heel of the hunt, it will have to be the right of the State to go to and from its property and not to skulk around corners surreptitiously trying to gain access in a way that will be allowed by a third party. That is not something we readily accede to in County Kildare or elsewhere in the country.

I compliment the Minister of State on his efforts to date, but we are not going away and the matter is not going to go away. We respectfully request that the State and its guests be entitled to go to and from the property without impedance or restriction and that the status quo be restored in that regard.

See this speech in context