Access to our scenic areas for ramblers and tourists could be opened up through the proposed CAP reforms, argues John O'Dwyer
While rambling the Western Way recently, I chanced upon an English couple who asked about crossing some fields to Croagh Patrick.
"I don't think anybody will stop you," I replied rather evasively, drawing on my boyhood experiences of uncomplicated times in Co Tipperary when you rambled as you fancied and so did everybody else.
"But are you sure?" the lady persisted. "Back home there is always a stile and a footpath, you don't just climb into somebody's field."
Actually, I wasn't at all sure. Despite a farming background and 20 years hillwalking throughout Ireland, the fact is that I have little idea what is accessible and what is not.
Paradoxically, on my UK visits the situation is much clearer. Each local authority registers and maintains a network of rights-of-way and makes maps of all such footpaths and bridleways available to the public. Meanwhile, the recent Countryside and Rights of Way Act created a new legal right to roam in areas of open uncultivated countryside.
No such certainty exists here, however. Somebody owns every square metre of Ireland and there is no obligation on landowners to allow public access.
There is, of course, de facto access to many upland areas, where landowners have over time taken no steps to hinder public admission.
This pertains to many of our mountains, such as Carrauntuohill, Brandon and Galtymore, where I never cease to be amazed by the tolerance and good humour of the local farmers, who, invariably, smile and even stop to chat as perhaps the fifth group of the day wends its way through their yard.
Most of the present access problems have not arisen at these traditional hillclimbing locations, however, but from the exponential increase in walking/rambling as a leisure activity.
Ramblers are a new type of recreational walker, seeking access not so much to unfenced mountains but to lower scenic areas for trail walking.
Some see access as a right, failing to understand the farming community's greater concern about these areas, which are fenced and have a pattern of intensive agriculture.
Certainly minds have not met on this issue and, consequently, "no entry" and "keep out" signs are now replacing the céad míle fáilte traditionally extended by landowners to visitors.
From my experience of organising wilderness walks for charity, this mushrooming signage makes it ever more difficult to find good quality low-level walks in Ireland. In Britain, by contrast, excellent quality walking for charity events is readily available and fully way-marked.
Ireland, nevertheless, continues to be unblinkingly marketed by Bord Fáilte as a prime walking/trekking destination while, in reality, the legal basis for such activities is most unclear.
We have, of course, a network of long-distance walking routes but few of our visitors are attracted to them as the majority offer far too much road-walking interspersed with monotonous trails among sitka spruce.
Indeed, I once tried unsuccessfully to develop such a way-marked route. My conclusion from this exasperating experience? Little can be done to improve the attractiveness of Ireland as a walking holiday destination while the access position remains unresolved.
Each year, 300,000 of our international visitors (about 5 per cent) partake at some level in walking as a holiday activity. Wales gets well over two million such visitors. Yet Ireland is arguably superior to Wales as a walking destination.
This country could actually be a paradise for walkers but we lack the consensus to put in place an internationally marketable walking network since, as things stand, the farming community will gain nothing but hassle from increasing numbers of ramblers.
Could the solution come from the EU Common Agricultural Policy now that it is being reviewed, reformed or reshaped, depending on your standpoint?
Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler wants sound rural development proposals for spending the projected 20 per cent saving from the decoupling of farm supports from production if these funds are to remain in Ireland.
Is this a key to resolving our access difficulties? Can some of this EU cash be retained within the farming sector by changing the model for our national parks?
At present, all such land is owned by the State and our national parks are relatively small. By contrast, over 10 per cent of land in England and Wales is within a national park. These parks mostly consist of privately-owned farmland. Landowners are subject to additional planning regulations but receive enhanced state support.
Such support is then conditional on reasonable access to the public for leisure pursuits.
Controlled access - regulated by a warden service - would certainly appear good for farmers, with the development by a park authority of defined pathways and stiles, saving fencing and crops from the inevitable damage which results from the present free-for-all.
However, all of us who spend our leisure as trespassers on farmland - for this is what we are as things stand - would have to accept that consensus among interests is the only way ahead for these proposals, with landowners designated within national parks being compensated at a level where they would actively seek such designation.
In such circumstances, is there a reason why Iveragh, north Connemara or west Donegal cannot become large-scale national parks, within which multi-functional agriculture becomes the way to sustainability for local communities? Farmers would be rewarded not just for their direct economic contribution to society but also for indirect contributions such as that to the tourism industry.
However, that is the future. Recently I had little option but to point the English couple around by road to our holy mountain. They smiled and thanked me, but will they return with badly-needed spending for declining western communities, if tarmac walking is the best we offer?
John G O'Dwyer is a hillwalker and mountain leader who organises challenge walks in aid of charity