Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are rights to declare public rights of way but local authorities do not use them. Compulsory purchase order powers tend not to be used. There are a lot of powers that are not used and it is a sad fact that in a lot of local authorities, members do not feel empowered to suggest new rights of way. We do not tend to add new public rights of way very often but we can. We extinguish public rights of way all the time. I will not go into it because it is a separate piece but it is also around making sure local authorities have the resources to support public rights of way. It is in tune with Government policy across lots of different Departments even from the climate and environmental perspective, leaving aside others such as health and child safety.Supporting local authorities and local authority members to feel confident to propose new rights of way and declare them would be something really great that could come out of this discussion.

I ask the Minister to give an indication in respect of timelines. It probably is a little more pressing. I tried to give it scope of 12 months but it would be very useful for the Minister to indicate how she plans to engage with stakeholders and Oireachtas Members, as well as giving her sense in terms of potential timelines for the review.