Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I read the name of this Bill and chills went through my veins, remembering my land law lectures with the late, great Deborah Wheeler, a barrister colleague, in the King's Inns. Certainly, this legislation is timely and good and there is no reason we should not all support it. I am sure the fears that went through rural Ireland, in particular, regarding it are something else.

There are two matters I want to raise. If there is to be a review and an examination of rights of way and private property rights, two urban issues need to be brought up. One of them relates to communal waste pipes where there is an unfortunate homeowner in whose front or back garden the manhole is located and neighbours are misusing the pipes and putting wet wipes and other sorts of things into it. If there is flooding, it happens in the homeowner's garden and they have to pay for the treatment of that. If the homeowner contacts Irish Water, the staff wash their hands of it and say it has nothing to do with them. I know of people who are on low incomes or who are elderly, and who are finding themselves responsible. The answer that Irish Water gives them is that they need to go out and knock on the doors of everybody else on their street and get a contribution towards the cost of clearing that out. That is not okay. It is the opposite of getting a right of way onto other people's lands to access your own utilities. It is where you become liable. When I and my office have talked to Irish Water staff about such issues, we have asked them whether the person has the right to close the manhole and stop this flooding in their garden. They do not have that right, but they have the sole responsibility for the fixing of issues caused by other people, over which they have no control. That puts neighbours at loggerheads with each other. It an issue that we must come up with some sort of legislative solution to or in respect of which somebody needs to take responsibility. It is not reasonable that individual homeowners have to do that.

The other issue I wish to raise concerns order 96 of the District Court rules, which provides a facility whereby people can go to court if their neighbours are causing noise pollution. However, if a neighbour has a series of security lights that are making their front room unusable, there is no solution to that other than to take a case under tort law. We need to amend order 96. It is reasonable that people should have the peaceable enjoyment of their homes. Again, we end up with neighbour disputes, where a neighbour goes in, puts up big security lights and others then end up having to put blackout blinds and all sorts in place just to enjoy their own home, if that neighbour is somebody who is unapproachable and will not co-operate. We need to amend order 96 and move beyond noise pollution to include light pollution under that order. The environmental health service and the council will not deal with it. There is no solution there currently, other than taking a case under tort law.

I echo Senator Conway's point on e-conveyancing. It is time we expedited it and got it done and dusted. It is long overdue. Other than that, I support the legislation and acknowledge the need for it.