Priority legislation due for publication this summer includes a provision on strengthening the Industrial Development Authority’s (IDA) powers to use compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) to take land.

The move was first mooted in July 2016 in the wake of the unanimous five-judge Supreme Court decision to overturn a High Court ruling, allowing the IDA to use a CPO to acquire a Co. Kildare farmer’s 72ac property.

Thomas Reid, whose land adjoins the Carton House Estate and Intel’s site in Leixlip, claimed the IDA’s actions breached his property rights under both the Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights.

The High Court had approved the action in 2013 after finding that the proposed CPO was provided for by law and was clearly intended to achieve the IDA’s objective of encouraging industrial development in Ireland.

However, delivering the Supreme Court judgement in 2015, Justice William McKechnie ruled that Section 16 of the 1986 Industrial Development Act did not confer any power to the IDA to acquire lands not required for immediate use, but which might be used in future.

The latest Industrial Development (Amendment) Bill will “address the implications of the Supreme Court judgement in Reid vs IDA and others, and ensure that the IDA has the necessary statutory powers to undertake their property functions”.

CPO threat to farmers

Earlier this week, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) spoke out about the “provocative” nature of CPOs in relation to the development of tourism greenways.

In an interview with RTE Radio 1’s ‘Morning Ireland’, the ICSA’s Rural Development Chair, Seamus Sherlock, warned against the use of CPOs that forced farmers into dividing up their lands to create tourism routes.

Although farmers wanted more tourists to visit rural Ireland, Sherlock said, alternative routes should be considered for the Dublin to Galway greenway.