Dear Members & Friends of Keep Ireland Open,
We hope that you have availed of and enjoyed every opportunity to escape into nature’s wonderland of sky, birdsong, hills, trees, riverside & seashore over the summer.
Click HERE for a summary of KIO’s activities in the political arena to ensure that the, albeit flimsy, protections of Public Rights of Way that were legislated for in 2010 are not wiped out in September.
We are asking you to lever your influence on your local elected representatives (TDs and Senators) to protect the public interest by amending the draft Planning and Development Bill before they pass it into law in September.
Please cut and paste the wording below into an email or letter, amending it as you wish, and sending it on to them.
Find my TD: Ctl+Click HERE
Find my Senator: Ctl+Click HERE
Or here: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/contact-us/
If you have any queries please reply to this email.
Thank you for your ongoing support and concern for access to the countryside.
Yours sincerely
Robert Dowds
Chair, Keep Ireland Open
Tel: Tel: 087 652 0360 / 086 832 7450
Proposed Email and/or Letter
Dear
The current draft of the Planning and Development Bill is in the final stages of becoming law. As a regular visitor to the outdoors I am concerned that provisions enacted in 2010 that oblige Local Authorities to include objectives to preserve Public Rights of Way in their Development Plans have been removed from the Bill.
Specifically, the latest draft – “Dáil Bill as amended in Committee by Seanad Éireann (17 July 2024)” – fundamentally modifies the obligation for local authorities to preserve PROWs. Vis:
Section 51(2) – Page 118 – in the draft Bill (2023) states that “A development management statement MAY include objectives for any of the following:
(g) preserving a specific public right of way,…”
whereas
Section 10(2)(o) of the 2000 Act, as amended, states that “the development plan SHALL include objectives for the preservation of public rights of way…”
This changed wording relegates the legal obligation from the current mandatory directive (SHALL) to
an optional obligation (MAY)
I am asking that you make representations to Minister Darragh O’Brien to ensure that these protections are carried over by making the following amendments:
“In page 118, to delete lines 10 to 12.” Clause (g)
“In page 118, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following:
(3) A development management statement shall include objectives for the preservation of public rights of way which give access to seashore, mountain, lakeshore, riverbank, cemetery, monument or other places of natural beauty or recreational utility, which public rights of way shall be identified both by marking them on at least one of the maps forming part of the development management statement and by indicating their location on a list appended to the development management statement.”
Yours sincerely