Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit anseo. “Sláinte agus saol agat; talamh gan cíos agat” was every Irish person's dream long ago. Tógadh an talamh uainn agus bhí orainn troid chun é a fháil ar ais agus é a roinnt idir na clanna ar fad. We had big challenges to get our land back and then it was divided. Land is a hot potato as we all know very well and it is very important that we make this intervention. It is a good intervention by Government. It is an example of politicians listening to people, organisations and farmers and doing a good job. I know from my own farm at home that my grandfather granted and received rights of way, which all happened in a lovely way long ago, but sometimes when it comes to dividing land and inheritance, it is a messy business. When I read this first before the intervention was proposed, I was frightened as many people I know, including old people and farmers, have rights of way on land that they have not registered. They have not gone down this legal route. To refer to what the Law Society said, no application could be made to validate such rights for another 18 years if we had not intervened, even where someone had been exercising those rights for 50 years or more. It is very important, therefore, that we are doing this today. Land is a big issue. It is not going to go away just because of this one change that we are making today.

Work is currently being done on a land use reform Bill by several Departments as they examine land use in Ireland, not just because of climate change but everything is changing. Our land use will change as well, and access to land. Land was compulsorily purchased in County Kerry for a greenway. Nobody wants to go down that route. We must look at how we are dealing with land. Senator Hackett and myself several years ago wrote a farmers first policy on accessing land for the Green Party. It is one where the farmer has to be engaged at the beginning because even to this day there are always major challenges any time we want to do a walking or cycling route. Some farmers themselves want to do walking routes. The Government has no set steps to be taken and no valuation. How should the land be valued and how much should the farmer be paid? If we have had that figured out, we would not be waiting ten years for a greenway in west Clare. There are many issues relating to land use that this Bill brings up for me. Land is precious. Many families over the years have had wars over land use. They have been blocking it, lying across it and gates were thrown over the ditch. If we had not intervened today I do not know what would happen. As previous speakers said, we must educate people. When I read this legislation, I did not have a clue and thought the Government wanted to take away rights of way unless people went to the lawyers. We have much work to do but we have Macra na Feirme, with ten thousand young farmers, and I do not know why we are not engaging more with them. They are the future of farming. They are the ones who comprehend these issues probably better than some of us and they can help us inform landowners about this. We need to be clever in how we move forward when we come to reform.

The other issue then is insurance. There is a fear among farmers about giving people access. This country is so full of amazing wells and dolmens. We have 200 castles in County Clare alone but there is great fear about giving access to land because of the claims culture and insurance companies ripping people off. The courts sometimes support that as well. That is a huge issue. Until we resolve that I do not know how we will resolve our land use and land access. I wanted to raise that as an issue while we are talking about this, but I welcome the work on this Bill. It is important that it has happened before the end of November. In future we must do much more to inform people so that the fear of God is not put into them about land rights and rights of way.