Trespass laws need to be strengthened - Leahy

A “dangerous lack of clarity now surrounds the rights of landowners to remove dangerous criminals and trespassers from their farms,’’ Renua leader Cllr John Leahy believes.

Speaking this week, Cllr Leahy said that trespass laws need to be strengthened.

“Such is the absence of legal certainty about their rights farmers may, in the absence of appropriate legislation be forced into serious self-defence measures such as being forced to resort to pitchforks and shot-guns to defend their farms.

“Currently if farmers identify people trespassing on their land, they cannot avail of the criminal law or call the Gardai unless there is an actual threat or criminal damage has been done.

“This is not good enough within a current scenario where farmers are being haunted and stalked on their own land by thieves and rustlers,” Cllr Leahy continued.

Unlike in the past, Cllr Leahy says that “trespass is no longer about stealing apples or shooting rabbits”.

“It is used as a highly sophisticated surveillance tool by recidivist criminal gangs. In Dublin such an individual hanging around some-one's back garden would be arrested immediately. By contrast a completely different and inevitably inferior standard applies to rural Ireland.

“Civil courts are utterly ineffectual in dealing with farmer concerns over trespass. The government must move swiftly to resolve this gap before farmers move to more traditional methods to defend their property,” the Renua leader warned.