Madam - John Dillon, president of the IFA (responding to Mary Raftery's excellent column of August 10th), is reduced to an incoherent rant, which amply illustrates how indefensible the IFA's latest assault on the public purse really is.
The IFA is proposing an annual charge for walkways of €5 metre plus €1,000 per farmer. Let's say that Ireland ends up with half the length of walkway that England and Wales currently enjoy. This would mean an annual cost to the State of €620 million for walkways alone, plus €1,000 for each farmer lucky enough to be in the plan (another few tens of millions?). Let's not also forget the cost of freedom to roam, which the IFA hasn't even addressed yet. And all this for something which landowners all over western Europe have conceded for little or nothing.
Mr Dillon brings up the old chestnut of the Constitution and access. He chooses not to know that the Oireachtas sub-Committee on the Constitution stated in 2003 that countryside access had no constitutional implications. Furthermore, he quotes approvingly John Concannon of Ireland-West tourism who declared that "we are moving beyond access". Perhaps Mr Concannon could explain this to the Irish participants in the Wilderness Adventure Racing Championship, which Ireland cannot host because of access problems (Life Features, August 15th). This is only one of the many losses that Ireland is suffering because of the intransigence of the main farming organisations and the failure of successive governments to tackle them. - Yours, etc,
ROGER GARLAND, Chairman, Keep Ireland Open, Butterfield Drive, Dublin 14.
Madam, - Well done, Mary Raftery, for upsetting John Dillon of the IFA (August 15th).
Far too many people, politicians et al, are ultra-careful when dealing with farmers. It is time that farmers realised they owe a debt to society in general rather than the reverse.
It seems to be a one-way street with farmers. Grants and subsidies for everything, including for leaving land to lie fallow.
A gesture of magnanimity such as open access for hill-walkers is long overdue, considering that much of the land was acquired free from the State in the first place. - Yours, etc,
JOHN BOYLE, An Ceadrach, Ballinrobe, Co Mayo.