TD slams justice minister over farm trespass law comments
A TD has sharply criticised Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan for comments he made in relation to Ireland's trespass laws.
In a recent parliamentary question response, Minister O'Callaghan said that he has no plans to change current laws around trespassing on farmland, saying that the current legislation is "robust".
The minister made the comment in response to questions from Fianna Fáil Tipperary North TD Ryan O'Meara.
Now another TD, Carol Nolan, has criticised the minister's comment, claiming it is "an insult to farming families".
According to Nolan, the remarks from Minister O'Callaghan "demonstrate a government that is radically disconnected from the realities facing rural Ireland".
"The minister’s comments fly in the face of years of warnings from farmers, landowners, rural communities, farming organisations and even members of the minister's own party," the Offaly TD claimed.
"In what world could anyone describe the current legislative approach to farm trespass as ‘robust’.
"The reality is that for years, farming families have been telling government that the law is failing to protect them from persistent trespass, intimidation, illegal hunting, roaming gangs with dogs, damage to property and repeated incursions onto private agricultural land," Nolan added.
"Yet the minister's response is to tell them the law is already robust. It is astonishing," she remarked.
According to Nolan, concern about the weakness of the current law is "no longer confined to opposition TDs...or farming organisations".
"We now have members of the minister's own party publicly expressing concern about the inadequacy of the existing legislative framework," she added.
"That alone should tell him that there is a serious issue here.
"Farmers are entitled to ask why, if the law is supposedly so robust, public meetings continue to be dominated by concerns about trespass, illegal hunting, intimidation and damage to property," the independent TD said.
She added: "They are entitled to ask why families living in isolated rural areas still feel that the people breaking the law enjoy more protection than the people whose land is being repeatedly targeted.
"The reality is that if the existing law was fit for purpose, there would not be such widespread demand for reform."
"The minister can continue telling farmers that everything is under control. Farmers know differently. Rural Ireland knows differently. Increasingly, members of his own party know differently," Nolan said.
