A proposal to charge ramblers a fee is without precedent or parallel. Paul Cullen reports
Walkers might not like the latest volley fired in the escalating war with the farmers of north Sligo, but they can't deny the frankness that accompanied it.
"We have an asset, and we're the only people not getting anything out of this," said Mr Gabriel Gilmartin, Sligo county chairman of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association. "Bed and breakfasts, hotels, pubs ...all these people are getting money from (walking) tourism, and we're getting nothing."
Mr Gilmartin, a supporter of the jailed farmer Mr Andy McSharry, told RTÉ's Marian Finucane Show that walkers should pay "a small fee" to access a farmer's land. He declined repeated invitations to nominate an amount but later agreed that €5 was one such "small fee".
Money, therefore, is one of the main factors behind the farmers' campaign in support of Mr McSharry, who was released from jail yesterday after serving two weeks for intimidating hillwalkers on his land.
However, the row is exacerbated by separate tensions within the farming and walking communities. Mr McSharry, a long-time member of the Irish Farmers' Association, has joined its much smaller rival, the ICSA, while the Mountaineering Council of Ireland (MCI) has been criticised for its consensual approach by members of the Keep Ireland Open pressure group. The fact that Mr McSharry is standing in the forthcoming local elections - he got 300 votes in the last general election - is another element in the mix.
It is ironic that the kind of land that tends be the most marginal land for farming purposes - for example, mountainy areas, riverbanks and boggy areas - attracts walkers in droves. Further, farmers in these parts are under growing financial pressure as sheep numbers are reduced and EU supports are reduced.
In the 1990s, about 1,200 farmers who facilitated the creation of way-marked routes through their properties were rewarded with payments under the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS). However, the second REPS scheme dropped this payment, leaving a feeling of resentment in the farming community.
Last year, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr Ó Cuiv, made it clear that "any proposal for Exchequer payment for access would not be acceptable". This leaves the walkers themselves as the remaining cash cow to be milked by farmers seeking to access a new source of income.
According to the Mountaineering Council of Ireland, the EU is opposed to payments to farmers for access; indeed, this is why the REPS payment was removed. The MCI says it is opposed to payments purely for access, but it supports the right of farmers to compensation for works carried out to allow access. Thus, a farmer could be compensated for the installation of stiles or the repair of fences.
In most other European countries, recreational users of the countryside enjoy greater legal rights of access than in Ireland. Some enjoy a legally-recognised "right to roam" while others have access to extensive networks of rights-of-way. The situation is complex but no one The Irish Times talked to yesterday could think of any precedent for Mr Gilmartin's proposals.
In any case, farmers would be advised to hasten slowly before they start installing turnstiles at their gates. The first question is how many farmers would benefit; many walkers only cross farming land to gain access to national park territory at higher altitudes. In spite of what the north Sligo farmers say, very few areas of the State see significant volumes of walkers. The main exception would be Wicklow, but here most access problems have been resolved through talks between the various groups involved.
Anyone charging for access would also have a duty of care to those entering, with all the attendant legal and insurance complications that involves. The protections afforded landowners under current legislation in the cases of walkers who have accidents on farmland would most likely disappear. Finally, who would hold the bucket on a wet and windy day in winter?