Madam, - Three cheers for Mary Raftery's article on the Labour Party proposal for access to the countryside. At long last a political party is prepared to take on the farming lobby.
As Ms Raftery states, 90 per cent of farm income is derived from subsidy by the taxpayers. Yet those taxpayers are denied access to their own countryside. No citizen, through an accident of birth, should have exclusive rights to the rivers, lakes, hills and mountains of Ireland.
Naturally, with access rights go responsibilities and I would hope ramblers would show more respect for the countryside than many farmers, who poison rivers and lakes and litter the public highways with their muck. - Yours, etc,
JAMES MORAN, Knockanure, Bunclody, Co Wexford.