Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I should have mentioned this in the previous section. We are going back to the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009. This legislation is moving forward in a very tight timeframe. With regard to easement versus profit à prendre, we could and should be looking at shorter periods for certain profits à prendre, as basic as the right to light, but that will potentially be part of the review. I will speak on the extinguishment of easements and profits à prendre. This Bill will not fix the legislation on easements. The issue of extinguishment is not named in my amendment coming later, but I hope the Minister will signal that it will be part of the review. It intersects with what was said about the public rights of way. We have these public rights of way, but in many cases, the network of public rights of way intersects with these prescriptive rights of way. The route that gets people from their house to the public right of way is a prescriptive right of way or an easement, or that is the path. They are almost like the rivulets that feed into our public rights of way.

I read with great interest the Second Stage debate and the call for awareness raising. As well as the call for awareness raising of the registration rights, we need to have more awareness raising cross-departmentally. I originally raised this issue with the Minister of State with responsibility for heritage and more than a year ago. Subsequently, I raised it with the Minister of State with responsibility for local government and planning, Deputy Peter Burke. He gave me some engagement on it, but was not able to progress it because it was not in his Department. I have gone the rounds, including with the Department of Justice before and after the summer. One of the problems is that this is regarded as being in and belonging to many Departments and we do not get a joined-up approach. When I was trying to raise the alarm on the 30 November deadline, almost 15 months ago, it took a long time to reach the right ears.

I have a real concern about what was mentioned about public rights of way and their extinguishment. Many local authorities across the country end up extinguishing public rights of way. We know these items, involving the extinguishment of rights of way, come up at the end of the agenda at local council meetings. Such a right of way might connect with other prescriptive rights of way and might be the piece needed to make a network of connectivity. We all want the 15-minute city and the ten-minute town. We all want access to nature and safe green networks around our cities and rural areas. I raise a flag of concern on extinguishments because sometimes they happen in a piecemeal fashion. A right of way might be extinguished because the five houses next to it might not see its importance, even though it might be very important in terms of what it connects to. I appeal to the Minister that when she is doing her review, as well as looking at the legal issues, she should give space for engagement on the policy space. As I will come to that later in my amendment on reviews, I will not go into it now. We need to look at how public rights of way intersect with prescriptive and permissive rights of way.