Ireland is being taken to the European Union’s highest court for failing to stop illegal peat extraction.
The European Commission said the decision was taken because there was “significant” peat-cutting was going on without any planning permission or environmental impact assessment.
“Despite evidence of these ongoing illegal activities, enforcement action at the local level is not being taken,” it said.
That evidence is not just physical but economic: commercial peat operators export 370,000 tonnes, valued at about €40 million, a year despite having no licence, planning permission or other required permits to do so.
RM Block
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said this year that illegal large-scale extraction of peat was “widespread”.
“The sector does not operate within planning or environmental laws,” the agency said.
The commission’s move follows years of legal wrangles over peat extraction in Ireland.
The activity has never been properly regulated, with comprehensive rules only being introduced after a decade of legal challenges led by Friends of the Environment ended in 2019.
At that point, the government at the time introduced legislation requiring commercial peat operators to have one or two forms of environmental assessment and to secure planning permission. In the case of extraction sites of more than 50 hectares they must have a licence from the EPA, too.
“These legislative changes were not followed by enforcement action,” the commission said in its decision to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice.
After the legislative changes, Bord na Móna, the semi-State peat extraction company, took the decision to cease peat production.
The commission acknowledged this and the restoration work being carried out on Bord na Móna lands. It noted that this work was “largely funded by the EU”.
A small number of other large operators were ordered to shut down following court action by the EPA and some others ceased production voluntarily.
But many other operators continued in business without seeking assessment, planning permission or a licence.
In 2024, the EPA handed over dossiers on 38 sample sites below the 50-hectare threshold to seven local authorities for enforcement.
The local authorities were in counties Offaly, Westmeath, Roscommon, Tipperary, Longford, Kildare and Sligo.
No enforcement action followed, an issue highlighted again by the EPA this time last year.
Several of the local authorities said at that time they did not have the planning, legal or financial resources to pursue enforcement cases in what they believed would become lengthy and costly proceedings.
Minister for Local Government James Browne said this year he would set up a regional enforcement authority to run the proceedings on behalf of the local authorities, but he did not give a time frame for its establishment.
The commission said “efforts by the Irish authorities have been insufficient”.
The Minister’s department has been contacted for comment.
