Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has said that Ireland had to take its responsibilities in relation to the conservation of bogs “massively seriously”.
The Minister was responding on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland to comments from Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice who said “Ireland should not be told what to do by a foreign power.”
The European Commission is to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failure to apply the habitats directive in protecting designated raised bog and blanket bogs from turf cutting, it was reported on Wednesday.
“We’ve worked very closely with farmers over the last number of years and indeed in terms of our national policy of taking decisions, which is radically changing how we deal with our bogs. As you know, over many years and decades, a lot of our electricity generation came directly from peat extraction, through Bord na Móna,” Mr McConalogue said
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“And indeed, you know, the commercial sale of turf was a significant industry in Ireland as well. That is totally changed.
“And not only do we no longer produce electricity through peat, there’s also no commercial peat extraction through Bord na Móna; we’ve also seen a situation where the amount of private extraction of turf has massively reduced,” the Minister said.
The European Commission decided on Wednesday to refer the Government to the European court. The habitats directive requires member states to designate their most precious natural habitats and to protect them from harmful activities – especially where they are designated as special areas of conservation.
Bog lands in Ireland continue to be degraded through drainage and turf cutting activities, and insufficient action is being taken to restore the sites, it concluded.
Mr McConalogue said that between 2022 and 2023 peat extraction from blanket bogs had been reduced by 40 per cent. Clearly the situation now was very different from 10 years ago, he said, adding the situation needed to change significantly every year.
“Right now in Ireland, we have the largest projects anywhere in Europe under way in terms of bog restoration, with 50,000 hectares of bogs being restored and work is commencing in 30 of our 53 raised bogs. “Work is continuing and ramping up all of the time.”
The key to the progress that had been made to date was the relationship between the Government and farmers and landowners in relation to restoring bogs.
This was “massively important work” and something in which farmers had shown “massive co-operation”. There were 55,000 farmers involved in taking “significant action” on how upland bogs were managed and restored, Mr McConalogue said.
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