In
Ireland you have no legal right to step onto private land, no matter how
remote. In Ireland there is no such thing as a right of way apart from
the obvious, for example public roads and urban parks.
Surprised? Well, so are visitors to Ireland who are accustomed in
their own countries to wander where they wish over suitable terrain and
who have clearly signed rights of way. (There�s more about this under
the heading �The Background to Access and the Law�
below).
The Aims
of Keep Ireland Open are:
- To
achieve a network of well-marked, maintained rights-of-way in lowland
areas to allow short walks and to reach open ground;
- To
gain freedom to roam over rough grazing land, that is about 7 percent of
the total land area;
- To
minimise barbed-wire fencing in mountain areas, as it is visually
intrusive and severely hinders walkers.
Is there
really a practical problem?
You may say
that we do not need legal rights as long as we can actually get into the
countryside and use what may be private paths and tracks. Fair enough,
but the sad facts are that we are rapidly losing even the informal
rights we had to access our own countryside. This is not obvious in the
Wicklow area or in the East of the country generally. Ironically these
are the very areas where there are most walkers and landowners may have
legitimate cause to complain.
Most of the
intractable problems are in the West, the area that attracts fewest
walkers, and is an otherwise prime area for developing hill walking and
other outdoor recreations as tourist attractions.
Here are a
few of the many current access problems:
- Day
trippers and casual walkers can no longer walk the Old Head of Kinsale,
a traditional �lung� for so many people from Cork and around;
- Hill
walkers can no longer visit parts of ranges such as the Benbulbin area
in Sligo, the Twelve Bens in Connemara, or parts of the Dingle and Beara
peninsulas in Kerry;
-
Archaelogists can no longer visit the important megalithic tombs, for
example at Carnbane in Westmeath;
- Bird
watchers are increasingly cautious about walking through areas where
they wish to study birds;
- Even
beaches are not safe: Ugool beach near Westport, a public amenity for
decades and supposedly in State hands, has been blocked off for years by
a local landowner.
Surely
there are areas where we have rights as walkers?
Yes, there
are two main areas, but neither is in private ownership. They
are:
- In
National Parks (which are a miserable 1 percent of the land area);
- In State
forests.
There are
also the long distance paths, which are in total 3,000km long (England
and Wales have 225,000km). However even these have been blocked by local
landowners. In addition, they do not cater for shorter, looped walks or
accessing wild open ground. In many instances they run through
monotonous State-owned coniferous forest and on public roads simply
because they have no alternative route across private land.
What
about landowners� insurance problems?
The Occupiers�
Liability Act 1995, which landowners
enthusiastically promoted, means that a landowner would have to show
�reckless disregard� for the safety of recreational users (or indeed
trespassers) before s/he could be successfully brought to Court. As far
as we know there was no case before the 1995 Act was brought into force.
Certainly no walker has brought a landowner to Court after the 1995 Act.
Yet
landowners come up with the same �insurance problem� time out of number.
We can only conclude that they don�t really want to know the
facts.
The
Background to Access and the Law
There are
two terms which we had better explain before we go further. These
are:
- Freedom
to Roam, which is the legal right to walk where you want, and which is
relevant mainly to open remote ground but certainly never around
dwellings;
- Rights of
Way, which is the legal right to walk along a path or track. It is
particularly important in cultivated areas and for those who want short,
usually circular walks or who want to reach open ground.
In Ireland
we make no pretence of having Freedom to Roam anywhere. We have a
pretence of having rights of way but what does this amount to in practice?
Nothing much is the sorry answer.
Let�s take
an example. You are walking along a path in the hills which you have
walked for years and are accosted by an angry landowner. You assert that
this is a right of way. He claims that this is his land and demands to
know why you think you have any rights here. Is it marked on the map as
a right of way? It is not. Is there a sign where you started indicating
that you have a right of way? There is not. So what makes you think you
have a right to walk here? Nothing! That�s the legal situation here in
Ireland and if you think this is merely theoretical go back and have a
look at the cases listed above, only a small sample of what we have on
file.
In the
countries of North-west Europe which we have studied, recreational users
(walkers, ramblers, birders etc, etc) have legal rights to walk in their
own country; in some countries this includes the right to walk anywhere,
except for obvious places such as across growing crops.
In stark
contrast, we in Ireland have virtually no rights to walk our own
country. This is not just our opinion. The EU has stated that there
should be a presumption to allow access to the countryside unless there
are compelling reasons otherwise. They have picked out Ireland as one of
only two countries in the EU where access to the country is particularly
restricted. And this in one of the least populated States in the whole
of the EU!
The Law
needs to be changed
Current
legislation on access to the countryside is simple and one sided; in
effect landowners have the law completely on their side. They can turn
recreational users away, for any reason or none. The result is that
landowners are increasingly using this imbalance to keep recreational
users off areas they have traditionally visited and/or to demand money
for allowing access. We urgently need a radical change in the
laws.
But
wouldn�t all this cost a fortune?
Yes, it
would, but only if we convince ourselves that it would. In other
European countries freedom to roam does not generally attract grants to
landowners unless there are compelling reasons eg constant vandalism.
The situation on providing rights of way is certainly going to cost
something but it should be a one-off expenditure. Maintenance of these
rights of way should be comparatively minor, certainly compared to the
numbers of tourists such facilities should attract and to the
improvement in the general well-being of our own people.
We have
only one example of the costs in maintaining access facilities. It
relates to Denmark where �90,000 has been put aside per annum to solve
all access problems.
So what
are the authorities doing about this?
We are not
only way behind all our neighbours; with ever-restricting access we are
actually moving in the opposite direction. Strangely, no public
authority in Ireland seems to care a fig about this growing problem: not
the tourist authorities, the relevant Government Departments or local
authorities, all are gripped by denial.
Of course,
sooner or later some authority here will have to take action and
unfortunately it seems that it will be later rather than sooner unless
the EU intervenes.
And in
the meantime?
In the
meantime we need hardly emphasise the effect this is having and will
continue to have on tourism, both local and foreign, since walkers are a
most important component of our tourism industry. Foreign walkers will
probably be disappointed by the fact that the only rights of way they
can find are the long distance walks, which have limited appeal. If they
assume that because they have considerable rights to walk where they
will in their own countryside they have similar rights in Ireland, then
they are in for an unpleasant surprise on their first bruising encounter
with an outraged landowner. It�s something they will remember and
recount to their friends back home.
There is
also a serious health implication. Walking is an excellent exercise that
can be enjoyed by all age groups. We are not suggesting that Irish
people have nowhere to walk, but the option of walking a traffic-free
path or track is steadily diminishing.
What are
you going to do about this?
If you feel
that the present situation is satisfactory, and we would be surprised if
you do, then do nothing! If however you feel that you should do
something about it then join us! Keep Ireland Open is the
national body working for the right to access our countryside,
mountains, seashore, lakes, rivers and other natural amenities. It is
composed of individual members and of national bodies concerned with
recreational and leisure activities.
How will
we achieve our objectives?
As we have
done in the past we will continue to lobby politicians and other opinion
makers both at national and EU level. We will raise the profile of
access problems in the national and local media, talk to tourism
interests, collate access problems nation-wide, research the laws and
access conditions in other European countries.
We publish
a quarterly newsletter outlining how our campaign is
progressing.
We need
you!
We need
members to show that there are people who care about access, and so that
we will have a strong body of support when we talk to politicians. Above
all, we need help to do all the work just mentioned. It is interesting,
important and useful work. Join
us!
If you
would like to inform us of any problems in your area please email us at
[email protected]
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