Greens seek protection of rights of way

THE Green Party yesterday launched a campaign to have ‘rights of way’ enshrined in County Development Plans in order to reverse huge declines in the number of walking visitors coming to Ireland.

The party is bringing a Private Members Bill before the Dáil that would require local authorities to list all existing public rights of way in their area, particularly those that give access to places of natural beauty or recreational areas.

Speaking at the launch yesterday, the Greens’ tourism spokesperson, Paul Gogarty, said the proposed legislation was prompted by concerns that continuing controversy and bad publicity over access to mountains, lakes and the seashore had led to the dramatic fall-off in hill walkers. There is also concern within the party about moves in some local authority areas to extinguish rights of way. The most recent occurrence was in Wicklow, where the IFA led a campaign to drop 14 rights of way and 33 “access routes” to the countryside and mountains.

The number of walking visitors to Ireland has fallen by more than half in over a decade, from 322,000 in 1992 to 168,000 in 2003. Authoritative sources within the tourist industry agreed yesterday that the question of access was the biggest single threat to the development of hill walking as a tourist product.

However, it was pointed out that there were other contributory factors behind the decline. The dynamics of tourism have changed. With the advent of cheap flights, Ireland is more often favoured nowadays as a destination for weekend, city-break-type holidays rather than for the traditional two-week holidays.

And according to Fáilte Ireland, there have been similar patterns of decline in the angling, equestrian and cycling sectors, all of which have seen marked reductions in the number of foreign visitors.

At the press conference yesterday, there were mixed messages in relation to the issue of compensation for farmers and land-owners in return for allowing access along, and maintaining, public rights of way.

Mr Gogarty, party leader Trevor Sargent and agriculture spokesperson Mary White, all argued that agreement should be reached by partnership and consensus. To that end, they fully supported the decision by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs to set up the countryside council, Comhairle na Tuaithe, to develop a national countryside recreational strategy.