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[Press Release: June 21st, 2005] Council must carry out further work on public rights of way says de BurcaFollowing a recent meeting of Wicklow County Council at which the recommendations of the Committee on Existing Routes to Amenity Areas/Rights of Way were adopted by councillors, Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca, has called for the work of the committee to continue.The Committee was established last autumn because of conflict that arose over the inclusion of 17 proposed public rights of way in the new County Development Plan. Councillors voted to eliminate these proposed rights of way form the Development Plan following intensive lobbying by the IFA and landowners. The matter was then referred to the newly established committee for its consideration with a view to reporting back to the full council by June 2005. "The Committee must be congratulated on carrying out its work within the timeframe agreed" says de Burca. "However, what became clear from our discussion at the council meeting was that while the issue of access routes has been clarified and agreed to a large extent, the committee only succeeded in agreeing to the possible listing of three public rights of way in the County Development Plan. These include Bray Head, the Bray-Greystones Cliff Walk and the Kilcoole Mass Path." The Green Party councillor claims that the idea that County Wicklow has only three officially recognised public rights of way as listed in its County Development Plan is ridiculous. She argues that there are potentially hundreds of unofficial public rights of way in the county and that Wicklow County Council has a responsibility to investigate and identify these routes in order to ensure that members of the public did not have to take expensive legal action to prove their right to use the routes. "My fears are that is we don't protect these rights of way, they will be listed as Access Routes, which is a much weaker status and will mean that landowners can close them down at their discretion" says de Burca. "For this reason I have insisted that the committee should not consider its work complete but should continue on and work on identifying and eventually protecting the many unofficial rights of way in the county. Of course this should be done in consultation with landowners, as this is likely to be the most effective way of achieving a successful outcome". The Green Party councillor has also insisted that the Old Famine Road in Enniskerry which was recently the subject of a legal action which found it was a public right of way should also be listed in the County Development Plan once the appeal period was over. "I was also extremely disappointed to see the submissions made to the committee by Coillte stated that they did not wish to see public rights of way recognised across their lands because of commercial considerations" says de Burca. "Coillte is supposed to be holding and maintaining land in trust for the Irish people. I think that the company has forgotten this fact and sees itself now as a purely commercial enterprise. This is unacceptable and certainly local authorities should ensure that the long-established public rights of way across Coillte lands should be protected by listing them in County Development Plans."
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