Horses on public road.

Conelan

Apologies in advance if this is being posted in the wrong forum.
Just wondering if anyone would have advice of where to turn to on this one before someone gets injured/killed. This is the situation...Land owner lives 20 miles away from his land. Has the land in forestry. A quiet laneway runs alongside the boundary ditch to the forestry. There is no fencing along the ditch so animals can walk in or out of the forestry. Some nice boys from a nearby town have put horses into the forestry. Horses wander out on to laneway during the night and make their way on to main road. Land owner knows about problem but doesnt give a sh1t. Forestry company dont give a sh1t. Horse owners dont look like the kind of guys who would give a sh1t. Reported to guards many times but nothing done. I'm the fool who goes out in the middle of the night to get them off the road when I hear them cos I'm worried some innocent man or woman will have a bad accident coming round a bend and ploughing in to them. Maybe I should mind my own business. Who would be liable if an accident happened???

Fann Linn

County council Roads dept and Gardai. Letter and photos to local Superintendant should do the trick.

Mooooo

Anytime horses were on the road here I call the guards and the owners don't be long appearing

riemann

Fann Linn wrote: »

County council Roads dept and Gardai. Letter and photos to local Superintendant should do the trick.

Reiterate this approach.

If anything happens a paper trail will show who was negligent. Council and Gardai know this and will make sure they are seen to do what is necessary now to avoid liability. I'd send letter to council also.

patsy_mccabe

Conelan wrote: »

......Who would be liable if an accident happened???

The owner is responsible, simple as that. The land owner is in no way responsible. Official Ireland doesn't want to address this issue. I'd photograph them and leave a paper trail to the relevant council.
Fair play for being such a responsible citizen.

gozunda

Something similar near hear. Group of well known gang / people dropped off horses in area of private forestry. Let's say this was done as part of some shenanigans going on with a neighbour who was a nasty piece of work. The forestry owner - an elderly man couldn't get the horses out and the horses destroyed the trees. Forestry inspector then cancelled forestry premia payments because the trees had been significantly eaten / trampled by the horses and destroyed ....

148multi

gozunda wrote: »

Something similar near hear. Group of well known gang / people dropped off horses in area of private forestry. Let's say this was done as part of some shenanigans going on with a neighbour who was a nasty piece of work. The forestry owner - an elderly man couldn't get the horses out and the horses destroyed the trees. Forestry inspector then cancelled forestry premia payments because the trees had been significantly eaten / trampled by the horses and destroyed ....

Don't forget the the department of agriculture, it's an offence to allow animals to stray under animal welfare legislation, plus the department of agriculture police microchiping and identification of horses, time to cc a letter, this may be pushed over on property owner as a convince by officialdom.

Conelan

Thanks for the replies all. Will try sending a few letters and see what happens.

Silver Breeze

Reminds me: In 1975 I was renting a house in Corbally, a suburb of Limerick, with three friends. In the summer, on a Sunday morning, I was up at 0600, drinking coffee, waiting to go driving in the VW van to the County Clare with friends.

Looking out the front window, I spotted an elderly land rover towing a horse box which drew up in front of the house. In the estate, there were no hedgerows and all lawns led to another.

Two boyos pulled a pair of horses, hobbled together, out of the trailer and onto the neighbours lawn. "You can't leave them there" I said. "F--- off" they said and drove away, leaving the horses happily munching on the lawns.

I found a length of string in the kitchen and went out onto the lawn and tied the string to the two horses. I led them down the road and around the corner. I tied them to a particular household door knocker and legged it back to my van and drove away.

The house belonged to the former Minister of Justice Dessie O'Malley. Horses never returned to the neighbourhood.

Years later. in 1990, I asked him if he remembered the two horses pulling at his front door. "I do," he said..."How do you know?"