Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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Question 734: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if his attention has been drawn to the fact that landowners and farmers of the Tousist and Lauragh area have always objected to their lands being vested; if his further attention has been drawn to the fact that the farmers and tenants in the Tousist area of the parish have never agreed to a land purchase with the Lansdowne Estate; his views on the documentary proof of this fact, under the 1923 Land Act, the Land Commission assumed and presumed that the landowners and tenants had agreed to a land purchase with the landlords before 1922 (details supplied). [22897/11]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I understand from the details supplied that the issue in this case revolves around the treatment of fishing and sporting rights by the Irish Land Commission on this Estate.

The Irish Land Commission was an independent statutory Commission set up under the Land Purchase Acts and it is not open to me as Minister to review its decisions. The Commission was dissolved by the commencement in 1999 of the Irish Land Commission (Dissolution) Act 1992.

Under Section 5 of that Act all fishing rights and fisheries which prior to the commencement of the Act stood vested in or reserved to the Commission now stand vested in or reserved to the Central Fisheries Board, now Inland Fisheries Ireland.

Sporting rights which were vested in the Commission are now managed by the Forest and Wildlife Service. However provision has been made in section 18 of the 1965 Land Act for the extinguishment of sporting rights, other than fishing rights, over registered lands, where such rights have not been exercised for a period of twelve years.