Farmers lack foresight over land access

NO sooner did the Labour Party introduce its proposed modest bill last week to facilitate legal access to mostly unproductive mountain land than it was subjected to the usual brainless tirade from the main farming organisations.

All it lacked this time was the customary references to Cromwell, rape and pillage.

Once again, the farming organisations fail to see the difference between rough grazing land and someone’s back garden. Once again, they forget that access to the countryside has no Constitutional implications.

Once again, they fail to see that legal rights for walkers to access the countryside is the norm all over western Europe, and has been for decades. Once again, they fail to realise that they are going to be increasingly dependent on the goodwill of the taxpayers of Ireland.

The fact is that 70% of the average farmer’s income, even more for those in poorer marginal country, comes in the form of grants from the EU.

However, if farmers want to avoid the taint of land nationalisation that, according to them, comes with allowing access, they have the solution in their own hands. They can hand back the billions they have got from Europe over the decades and forgo the billions they are going to get in the decades ahead.

They can then live a life of sturdy independence completely free of the non-farmers who cause them such grief.

Roger Garland

Chairman

Keep Ireland Open

Butterfield Dr

Dublin 14