Many farmers around the country have walking groups, fishermen, hunt clubs and shooters crossing their land each year.

Under Irish law, occupiers of land have a duty of care to those entering their property, including trespassers.

The Occupiers Liability Act 1995 contains specific provisions designed to facilitate the use of land for recreational activity and the duty owed depends on the category of persons who come on to the property, ie visitors, recreational users or trespassers.

Recreational users

Under the act, a recreational user is a person present on the premises or land of a person without charge (other than a reasonable charge for parking facilities) for the purposes of engaging in a recreational activity.

In this situation, the owner of the land is obliged to not intentionally injure or harm the recreational user or act with reckless disregard for the recreational user’s welfare.

This means that if a landowner is deemed to fail to prevent danger when they were aware of it and a walker is subsequently injured, then the landowner can potentially be liable for that injury.

Public liability insurance

The landowner should ensure that members of the walking group, gun club or hunt club have public liability insurance to cover their liability for injury or damage caused to the landowner/occupier or to another third party as a result of their own negligence.

The representative bodies for most countryside recreation activities arrange insurance cover for registered members.

The National Trails Office/Irish Sports Council in conjunction with the local authorities arranges insurance for waymarked walking routes and other recreational trails in Ireland. The policy indemnifies private landowners along these routes against claims from recreational users.

In any event, it is advisable that all landowners have public liability insurance where there is recreational activity on their land. This covers injury, disease or property damage caused to a member of the public arising from landowning/farming activities.

Visitors

A landowner charging recreational visitors for entry (as opposed to a reasonable charge for parking) increases their duty of care to that owed for visitors. In relation to visitors, the landowner is under a duty to take such care as is reasonable to ensure that a visitor to the premises does not suffer injury or damage by reason of any danger due to the state of the premises.

However, the landowner may restrict this duty to the lower duty not to intentionally injure or act in reckless disregard of the visitor or his property by warning entrants of the limits of their potential exposure for liability, thereby putting the visitor entrant on notice that they should take more care of themselves. The notice should be placed at the main entrance to the premises, must be reasonable and should be stated in clear, concise language.

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Special focus: farm insurance