Minister should put it up to the farm lobby

IT was entirely predictable that the IFA should come out with their usual hysteria in the wake of the legal experts’ report on access to the countryside. Cries of “nationalisation of the land”, “trampling on our livelihoods”, etc, rend the airwaves.

Nothing could be further from reality.

The expert group set up by Eamon Ó Cuiv to enquire into the legal position on access came out with a factual evaluation which merely asserted that the constitutional protection of the rights to private property are not absolute and can be altered in the public interest.