Plan for walking routes gets wide support

A national countryside recreation strategy, including proposals for the development by landowners of walking routes, has been agreed by all members of Comhairle na Tuaithe except the Irish Farmers' Association.

Despite the IFA stance, the Comhairle report, agreed yesterday, will now be presented for approval to Minister for Rural, Community and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív and then on to Cabinet.

Mr Ó Cuív said he was "absolutely thrilled" that so many disparate groups had reached agreement.

He had a broad outline of what was in the report and was supportive of it, he said. It represented a "marvellous breakthrough" and he expected many farmers to "come on board".

Two other farming organisations represented on Comhairle - the ICMSA and the ICSA - had supported the strategy, he noted.

Mr Ó Cuív said he expected to receive the report in the next week and would give a "quick response" as to the way forward, probably around the time of the National Ploughing Championships late next month.

Full details of the strategy will not be published until then, but the report is understood to advocate that landowners should be given the opportunity to benefit from involvement in providing countryside recreation, while it resists a scheme of payments urged by the IFA.

Comhairle na Tuaithe was set up by the Minister to address issues relating to developing access to the countryside, a countryside code and a national countryside recreation strategy. Some 20 organisations are represented on it, including Coillte, tourism marketing bodies and the Mountaineering Council of Ireland.

During talks extending over 2½ years, the IFA had proposed a scheme under which farmers would be paid some €5 per metre of walkway, which had been estimated at a total cost of some €400 million a year.

The Minister and other organisations on Comhairle objected to any such scheme of compensation for access but indicated support for a plan under which farmers would receive some payment for development and maintenance of walking routes.

Mr Ó Cuív said he favoured a scheme under which farmers and landowners could be effective employees of his department in relation to development and maintenance of walking routes, and would receive payments under the Rural Social Scheme rather than a standard fee.

The IFA's hill farming committee chairman, Neilie O'Leary, said yesterday the agreed strategy had "failed farmers".

Comhairle had failed to resolve the issues put before it and the strategy included no tangible proposals for farmers who were willing to allow walkers access to their lands, he said.

A comprehensive proposal advanced by the IFA last summer had been ignored in the agreement, he added.

Helen Lawless of the Mountaineering Council said that while it was disappointing that the IFA had chosen not to endorse the report, there was "a lot of benefit" to farmers in it.

As a result of yesterday's very positive meeting, she was confident a strategy would be completed, Ms Lawless said.

The council, she added, was opposed to the IFA's "one size fits all" proposals for payments to landowners. There was a world of difference, for example, between a much-used walking route in Co Wicklow and an isolated way in Co Donegal, she said.

A key recommendation in the report is the establishment of a representative national body to co-ordinate development of the countryside recreational scheme, she noted.

Roger Garland of Keep Ireland Open, another member of Comhairle, described as "absurd" the IFA's proposals for payments to farmers relating to walking routes.