Court fouls up jarveys’ bid to avoid dung catchers
What’s good for roses is not necessarily of benefit to more than a million visitors to Killarney National Park each year, the parks service argued. You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. However, when you feed a horse, the outcome is always certain. And that same outcome was the subject of prolonged legal argument since the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) mooted their dung-catcher plan for horses using Muckross park.
Lawyers, who would never dream of looking a gift horse in the mouth, focused instead on the other end to determine a legally binding end product.
Mr Justice Liam McKechnie ruled that the NPWS was entitled to insist that the jarveys use dung-catching devices as part of its duty to manage and maintain the park.
“We just want to keep the park safe and clean,” said NPWS regional manager Eamonn Meskell.
In all, 27 jarveys took the High Court action after being refused access to the park last year for refusing to use the nappy-like catchers on their horses.
They argued in court that the NPWS had no power to ban them from the park. They also argued it was an attack on their property and personal rights, was discriminatory and infringed their constitutional right to earn a living.
The judge went through the arguments like, well, oats through a horse and ruled against them on all points.
Last night, the jarveys were trying to make horse sense of the ruling.
“We must consider all the implications of the judgment and will also be actively considering an appeal to the Supreme Court,” said their solicitor Paul O’Donoghue.
