Planning and Development Bill 2023: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2024-09-25
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

That is the case with accessibility and all of these other issues. The fact is that we are sliding backwards on public rights of way. I spoke to the Minister of State two years and a half years ago about the vision for what public rights of way could be, even from a green perspective. Our amendments refer to access to spaces of natural beauty. It is not just about that; it is about access to schools, children being able to travel on their own down cow-roads or public rights of way and people being able to access water or our rivers or nature. Our amendments mention access to cemeteries. There is a consistent failure to try to strengthen the legislation. What we are seeing is a weakening. The Minister of State has just said that there are lots of reasons we might not want to list rights of way.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2024-09-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:16+00:00
Sitting date: 2024-09-25