Dear Member,
This email letter is being sent to you to keep you updated about Keep Ireland Open and to wish you a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Many thanks for your continuing support of Keep Ireland Open. Sadly there continues to be a pressing need for legislation to protect and extend rights for way for walkers and other recreational users as access is still not enshrined in law as in other countries.
Our previous committee, led by the redoubtable Roger Garland, has handed over to a new committee. This has led to a new focus in the following areas:
1. A new Keep Ireland Open website.
2. Continued and renewed focus on cases where access has been threatened or denied such as the Upper Vartry Reservoir Looped Trail, Co. Wicklow and two blockages at Fenit, Tralee, Co. Kerry.
3. Lobbying politicians with a view to bringing legislation that ensures the right to access our countryside before the Dáil and Seanad. So far we have had face-to-face meetings with both the Green Party, Social Democrats and the Labour Party and it’s our intention to meet the others.
The KIO AGM is scheduled to take place in Tailors’ Hall, Back Lane, Dublin 8, D08 X2A3 on Saturday18th. February 2023 from 11am to 3.30pm, In the meantime, we’d be most grateful if you would renew your membership subscription or make a donation to us via the Keep Ireland Open website www.keepirelandopen.org.This will help cover our significant expenses on our new website and organising the successful protest at Vartry to remove the barriers blocking the looped trail which has recently happened.
Every good wish for Christmas and the New Year,
Robert Dowds, Chair,
Keep Ireland Open