Sir, - Mr Donal Murphy of the ICMSA (letters, September 18th), says that I am wrong in claiming that under the 1995 Occupier's Liability Act, occupiers have no duty to recreational users crossing their lands.
I am not wrong. As far as the occupier's responsibility is concerned, recreational users are classed with trespassers. Under Section 4 of the Act, the only duty that the occupier has towards persons in these categories is that he/she should not injure persons in the categories deliberately and should not act with "reckless disregard" towards them.
in any case, even if Mr Murphy were right, he accepts that the 1995 Act is an improvement on the common law which went before. As far as I know, in all the time that the former, less satisfactory situation pertained, there was never a case of a trespasser taking an occupier to court in the circumstances covered by the present Act, still less of a trespasser being successful. Yet all the offensive notices to which I referred have been erected since the Act was passed.
Mr Murphy is on record as stating that the objective of ICMSA is not to restrict entry. A sign stating "Unauthorised Entry is Prohibited" is an odd way of implementing this laudable aspiration. I again call on the ICMSA to consider the damage these unnecessary signs are doing to several areas of tourism, not least to agri tourism, in which many members of the ICMSA engage. - Yours, etc.,
Meadow Grove,
Dublin 16.