Lissadell owners slam ‘whitewash’ report on right-of-way legal costs
Eddie Walsh and his wife Constance Cassidy have branded a report on the controversy, to be presented to the council tonight as a “whitewash”.
The €7m bill for the Lissadell legal row is listed to be discussed at tonight’s meeting. It is to be added to the council’s €94m debt.
The Supreme Court ruled only one remote passage to the seaside was a public right of way and there was none over the three remaining main passages, including one which passed the front door of the house.
The couple said they are only commenting now because they have seen a report to be presented to councillors
“It does little to inspire confidence for the future of Lissadell. Our family see the last five years as a waste.”
Mr Walsh said the family is considering whether it wants to continue with Lissadell, which they bought for €4m in 2003 and spent another €9m on it to turn it into a 40,000 visitors-a-year tourist attraction.
“It is absolutely scandalous that before embarking on this hugely expensive litigation, a public body such as Sligo County Council did not itself independently make any effort whatsoever to ask for the views of any of the local people whose families had lived for generations on the Maugherow peninsula beside Lissadell.
“If the council were acting as a neutral unbiased public body they would themselves have instituted extensive independent inquiries rather than restricting themselves to information provided to them by a small pressure group, the Lissadell Action Group.”
The statement added: “It is all the more shocking that the council did not carry out independent research.”
The couple claim Joe Leonard, the councillor who led the campaign for the rights of way to be declared public, and families of at least two senior council officials, were members of the pressure group.
Yet, they insisted, the council ignored and refused to accept a petition from 1,000 other people in the area to stop the case going to court.
“This was never about access to a beach. Before Sligo County Council started this we allowed public access on three of the four avenues of Lissadell from dawn to dusk.
“How was it in the public interest to make this claim which has resulted in Lissadell being closed, 40,000 visitors and rising being lost, 34 jobs being lost and the people of Sligo having to pay 100% of Sligo County Council’s legal costs, and 75% of our legal costs which we incurred in defending our family and our house?”
