The duty of the Office of Public Works under the Canals Act is to undertake the care, management and maintenance of the canals and other canal property as a public amenity.
Prior to 1986, when the Office of Public Works took over the canals, some sections of canal towpath has been turned into roadways accessible to vehicular traffic. Damage to these roadways has been greatly compounded as a result of their use by heavy vehicles, including farm machinery, in recent times. It is not the responsibility of other Office of Public Works to maintain these roadways in a suitable condition for such traffic and they do not have the financial resources to do so. In any event, upgrading such roadways is not in the interests of maintaining the amenity potential of the canals.
The path in question is not a towpath as such but adjoins the Miltown feeder which supplies the canal with water from Pollardstown Fen. The critical importance of the feeder to the canal system, and the international scientific significance of the Fen, further reinforces the policy of not facilitating any additional vehicular traffic.
The Office of Public Works are conscious that where such access routes exist at present and are used by residents to gain access to their houses there is a need to provide a surface of reasonable quality and they are prepared to adopt a flexible approach to enable this to be done, provided they can be satisfied any such work undertaken will not lead to further undesirable ribbon-style development along the canal banks.
