The Government has been urged to immediately introduce legislation to allow walkers the freedom to roam upland grazing areas which cover 7 per cent of the State.
The call was made at the weekend by Mr Roger Garland, of the Keep Ireland Open movement on foot of the report of the all-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution published last week.
The former Green Party TD said the report had opened the way for the introduction of legislation without the need to amend the Constitution.
"Whenever we approached politicians about the need to introduce legislation to regularise the situation on hill-walking, we were continually told that such legislation would require a Constitutional amendment," he said.
"Now, this all-party report has stated in its conclusions that constitutional changes are not necessary and it is of the utmostimportance that legislation is proceeded with as quickly as possible," he said.
The report stated that the committee was satisfied, having looked at the Articles of the Constitution, that "no constitutional amendment is necessary to secure a balance through legislation between the rights of individual ownership and the common good".
The committee noted the increasing problems in the countryside over access, with the divisions of commonage and access problems, particularly in the West. An Irish Mountaineering Council survey of its members submitted to the committee had found that 48 per cent of them had experienced access difficulties. It also took on board the submissions from the farming organisations and the fear farmers expressed that they could be liable for injuries to people using their lands despite the Occupiers Liability Act 1995.
The committee, in its findings, said that should it transpire that the Act was found, on appeal to the courts, not to be effective in protecting landowners from claims, the committee urged the "Oireachtas to repair the legislation as quickly as possible".
There has been increasing tension between landowners and walkersin recent years and this was brought to a head with the imprisonment of a Co Sligo farmer earlier in the year for non-payment of a court fine imposed for threatening walkers coming off his land.
The resulting publicity has put great pressure on Fáilte Ireland, which has been receiving complains from visitors and natives about being ordered off or refused entry to lands.
The problem has been further exacerbated by the refusal of the EU to allow the Government to continue to pay farmers for public access to waymarked walks under the Rural Environment Protection Scheme.
When the REPS scheme was introduced in the mid-1990s a portion of the REPS payment was for allowing public access to walks and public monuments. This was withdrawn when the REPS scheme was revised.