Bog standard hypocrisy
Environmentalists are furious over minister’s turf-cutting plan
AFTER paying compensation of €30m to save Ireland’s boglands and slashing 430 jobs at the State turf-producing firm Bord na Móna, Culture and Heritage Minister Josepha Madigan has decided to purchase bogs so turf cutters can go back to harvesting the high carbon-emitting fuel.
The apparent policy turn-around has put the Fine Gael minister and elated turf cutters on a collision course with environmentalists, who are utterly opposed to the plan.
Two weeks ago, the minister lodged a planning application with Kildare County Council seeking permission for nine people to be allowed to cut turf at Coolree Bog.
It is located about two kilometres outside the Kildare town of Prosperous and is right beside two EU-designated protected sites, Ballynafagh Bog and Ballynafagh Lake.
According to planning documents submitted to the local authority, this land is owned by local man Michael O’Hehir and Kildare County Council.
But if planning permission is granted, the State will become the owner of the bog and nine locals will then be allocated an acre of ground, from which they can harvest turf twice a year until the bog disappears.
When contacted at his home this weekend, landowner Mr O’Hehir refused to conreduce firm whether he would be one of the nine allowed to cut turf and he referred all queries to the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
He said: ‘What difference does it make whether I’ll be allowed to cut turf? I don’t know whether I’ll apply or not.’
Meanwhile, when contacted by the Irish Mail on Sunday this week, Ms Madigan’s department refused to answer any questions about the pending land deal, which has enraged environmentalists.
Even though it is a matter of public record that Galway County Council granted planning permission last summer for turf cutting to start at two separate bogs, the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht refused to reveal whether the minister has lodged similar applications with other local authorities.
Meanwhile, a departmental spokesman also claimed he could not reveal whether Ms Madigan was planning to submit additional turf-cutting applications to other local authorities.
This weekend, the Friends of the Irish Environment group (FIE) submitted an objection to the minister’s planning application with Kildare County Council.
It is expected that FIE and other objectors will lodge an appeal with An Bord Pleanála if Kildare County Council grants permission for turf cutting at Coolree Bog.
FIE group director and spokesman Tony Lowes said: ‘Bogs are our Amazon, our jungle. They’re really valuable because they can store carbon. All we have to do to our carbon emissions by 15% is to stop cutting turf, because 15% of the emissions can be soaked up through the ground in the bogs.
‘We are extremely concerned that the Government are doing two different things at the same time.
On the one hand, they are letting people go at Bord na Móna [as part of a plan to reduce carbon emissions] and on the other hand they are letting people cut bogs.’
In its objection, FIE claimed a breeding pair of rare merlin falcons that fly over and feed off the Kildare bog would be threatened if the minister’s turf cutting plan were given the go-ahead.
These birds of prey have become so rare here that it is believed there are only 100 to 200 pairs left.
FIE also claims in its objection that water levels and carbon emissions will be adversely affected if the council allows the cutting to go ahead. In reports submitted along with the minister’s planning application, experts state that Coolree Bog is not a protected habitat, even though it is located beside two EUdesignated special areas of conservation. The experts conclude that the Kildare bog is ‘not located within or directly connected with or necessary to the management of any’ protected habitat. Meanwhile, independent Galway Roscommon TD Michael Fitzmaurice, who is a vocal defender of turf-cutting and chairman of the Irish Turf Cutters and Contractors Association, said many people in rural Ireland relied on turf to heat their homes. He predicted that objections from environmental groups to Ms Madigan’s turfcutting plan would lead to a lengthy battle with turf cutters. ‘This bog is an undesignated bog and under this plan nine people will be relocated from Ballynafagh Bog, which is a Special Area Conservation,’ he said. ‘These people are facilitating the State in the interest of preserving as much of the 53 protected bogs as possible. ‘If people obstruct this, then there will be another battle for 10 to 15 years,’ he added.
‘Bogs are our Amazon ... our jungle’ ‘There will be another battle for 10 to 15 years’