On 8 February, the last occasion we dealt with this Bill, I spoke about the question of children's playgrounds. If a person unlawfully enters a playground in the middle of the night and is hurt, under present legislation the courts may award damages against the proprietor. This matter should be reconsidered under the provisions of this Bill. If people cross antipersonnel fencing — as opposed to fences around farms to keep livestock in — to gain access to property, the occupiers should be indemnified against claims arising from accidents that may occur on such property. Should we not include a provision in the Bill excluding occupiers from liability in cases where people enter property by climbing over a fence specifically put there to keep people out? It is nonsensical that an occupier should be held responsible for a person who gets hurt after entering property by climbing over, say, a ten foot fence in the middle of the night. Such people, even if they are minors, should be held reponsible for their actions.
We are trying to strike a balance in this Bill, not between occupiers and entrants, but between legitimate compensation and providing reasonable access to facilities. Because of the way the law operates at present many legitimate users of, for example, children's playgrounds, are deprived of such facilities. It is no longer feasible for communities to provide those facilities because of high insurance costs. As a result legitimate users — people willing to take a reasonable amount of risk — are deprived of valuable community services. All community organisations are faced with this problem and our young people, in particular, are affected. The question of liability in respect of youth clubs and so on must also be addressed; if people enter properties during the time they are closed, the occupiers' liability provision should not apply.
Another important matter is the right of people to use public facilities at their own risk. If a sign at the entrance to a playground states that children under the ages of 12 or 14 years should not enter without being accompanied by an adult, people should adhere to such regulations. If, however, a child enters those premises under the supervision of an adult and is hurt, not due to the malfunction of any equipment there, liability should not attach to the occupier but to the person who brought the child into the playground. I fail to understand why adults should not take responsibility for minors they take to such facilities.
Responsibility for young people is a vexed question. We can deprive our young people of facilities by placing too much onus on the occupier. A number of Deputies pointed out that we must stress the need to attach liability to parents and guardians to ensure the safety of young people. If young people wander all over the place and are hurt in the process, one must ask how they got there in the first place. We must strike a balance between ensuring that people are not put at unfair risk and ensuring that the position is not so penal as to deprive people of many facilities. People have told me that it is becoming more and more impossible to provide facilities for young people because of the insurance quagmire.
It is important that the traditional access to properties that has always been enjoyed in rural Ireland is maintained. I live in an area of wide open countryside where the potential for tourism as an income earner is great. It is important to strike a balance. Huge areas of the countryside where I live are unfenced and open to the public and I would hate to see farmers forced to restrict entry on land, mountains, etc. Contrary to popular opinion, there are designated owners of all the land in places like Connemara — all the hills are owned by somebody, in common or exclusively. Traditionally ownership meant that one had the grazing rights, not that one could prevent somebody from hill-walking. Until recent years nobody either worried about liability — because it was considered that there was none — or thought of excluding people from such property. It is important that access to the land and mountains be maintained, but this can only be done if the Bill operates on the basis of reasonable care being taken and nothing being done materially to put people at risk. In other words, it would be taken that bog holes in open countryside would be treated as a natural hazard and that an occupier would be at no risk as long as he did nothing to increase the inherent risks of mountain climbing or walking across bogs. It must also be provided that, where in the normal course of farming activities tractors are left unattended in farm yards or in fields at lunch time or in the evening, nobody would be entitled to compensation if they interfered with such machinery and put themselves at risk.
Many farmers have historic monuments and sites on their land which are subject to preservation orders. This means they cannot be knocked down, which is good because nobody wants historic buildings, towers, etc. to disappear. On the other hand, many are on private land and in a bad state of disrepair, having exposed stairways, etc. I do not know what the situation would be if somebody came to grief at one of these historic sites on private land. It seems the land owner would be in a invidious situation. He cannot knock the building down, for good reasons. Can the Minister confirm that he cannot be held liable for the disrepair of the building? If the answer to that question is not in the affirmative, something will have to be done within the context of the Bill to exclude liability for such sites as long as a sign is put up warning people that they enter the site at their own risk. I cannot understand why we cannot have the concept of "own risk" in certain circumstances. The putting up of signs is mentioned in the Bill but there is no guarantee that in such a situation the occupier would not be at risk of being held liable in the case of injury to a visitor.
In the final analysis the measure of effectiveness of this Bill will be in how the insurance companies amend the premia they charge for occupiers' liability insurance. If rapidly soaring insurance costs do not drop it will mean the Bill is a failure because it will not have addressed the crucial balance of which I speak. If insurance costs drop and we achieve a reasonable balance between the rights of the individual who is injured and those of the occupier, that will be a fair measure of the success of the Bill. If, in three or five years' time there has not been a knock-on effect on insurance premia and the compensation being paid out is the same or spiralling, as at present, we will have to come back and re-examine the situation. The present situation cannot continue whereby reasonable enjoyment of the pleasures of life is becoming more restricted because of the fear of being sued for damages.
Ar deireadh, creidim gur Bille fíorthábhachtach é an Bille seo. Caithfidh mé a rá gur cúis aiféala dom gur cuireadh siar ar feadh míosa é. B'fheidir gur cuireadh siar míosa é nach raibh mórán gá leis. Creidim gur píosa reachtaíochta é seo, nuair a chuirfear tríd an Dáil agus an Seanad é, a bheidh an-tábhachtach i saol an ghnáthphobail. Tá tábhachtacht leis ó thaobh na feirmeoirachta de. Tá tábhacht leis do úinéirí tithe. Tá tábhacht leis ó thaobh dream ar bith atá i mbun gnótha. Tá fíor-thábhacht leis do chuile duine atá ag plé le cúrsaí pobail, cúrsaí spóirt nó cúrsaí caithimh aimsire. Bheadh súil agamsa, nuair a bheidh an Bille seo rithte, go mbeadh cóimheas ceart ann do chearta an té atá i mbun sealbhachais agus go mbeadh na cearta sin cosanta ar bhealach cothrom. Bheadh súil agam, ag deireadh an lae, go mbeadh deis ag daoine taitneamh a bhaint as sealbhachas, go mbeadh an lucht úinéireachta in ann deis a thabhairt do dhaoine taitneamh a bhaint as an sealbhachas atá acu, go mbeadh cosaint ann don té a dhéanfar dochar dó agus go mbeadh níos mó saoirse ag an bpobal, rud atá á cheilt orthu i láthair na huaire.