West Cork walks scheme
Deputy Collins seeks action on staffing and administration problems in the West Cork walks programme, which supports farmers and tourism. The Minister says she is being briefed that afternoon and will bring forward plans in due course.
On 26 June, I raised the issue of the crisis the West Cork Development Partnership finds itself in with the walks programme, which benefits more than 600 farmers in west Cork. The Sheep's Head Way and the Beara Way are among some of the stunning walks covered by this scheme, bringing in €14 million in walking tourism revenue to west Cork. For the past few years, west Cork has had two part-time recreation officers to oversee the payments and visits to 600 farmers, while other parts of the country with 25 farming participants have a full-time recreation officer. Since I raised this issue in June, the two existing recreation officers in west Cork have finished working simply due to the pressure they have been put under.
I am reliably informed that a long-awaited external review of the walks scheme given to the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys, is lying on her desk and needs to be published. I am astonished that the Minister was in west Cork for several days during the summer, on the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil roadshow with two chosen Oireachtas Members, and failed to meet with the West Cork Development Partnership despite all Oireachtas Members asking her to do so the month before. Will the Tánaiste personally intervene on this issue immediately in order that the West Cork Development Partnership can get four recreation officers, and payments to farmers and landowners in west Cork can be made this year?
