IFA claims are a walk on the wild side

WE are not over impressed by recent IFA claims of a breakthrough in negotiations with Rural Affairs Minister Éamon Ó Cuív about access to the countryside.

The IFA has moved little from its original demand of €10 million per year for walkways, plus €5m annually for farms involved in its Walkways Scheme. While the latter demand remains unchanged, the former now seems dependent on maintaining proposed walkways.

Farmers are already adequately provided for under the Single Payments Scheme and in other European countries landowners normally provide rights of way for nothing.

Who is going to decide the level of maintenance to warrant grants? How is the EU going to look on this proposal? And if this aspect of access to the countryside is successfully concluded, what about the undesirable precedent it sets when — if ever — freedom to roam over rough ground is broached?

There are 225,000km of rights of way in England and Wales. If the IFA’s proposed network of 2,000km were to be similarly expanded here, it would cost at least €400m per year.

Why should Irish taxpayers cough up? They are providing farmers with more than enough already.

Roger Garland

Keep Ireland Open

Butterfield Drive

Dublin 14