EU to continue fight as just 1% of bogs left

THERE is now less than 1% of living bog left in the country and despite it being protected, the decimation continues, the European Parliament was told.

But if turf cutting begins as normal in the spring, the EU will consider taking out a court injunction against the Government, environment commissioner Janis Potochnik said.

Despite agreeing at EU level 20 years ago to protect a small percentage of what were the best raised bogs in Europe, the government handed out 10-year derogations on these sites even as they were selected as special areas of conservation.

Even when the government avoided a €21,000-a-day fine by the European Courts by promising to abide by the laws they signed up to, nothing changed, MEPs were told.

Instead, it paid out more than €26m in grants to drain bogs, create roads into inaccessible bogs and for sausage-cutting machines that destroyed the natural habitat.

And they continued to claim hundreds of thousands of euro from the EU money for preserving bogs even though extraction still continues today, unlicensed and without any impact assessment.

Friends of the Irish Environment in May checked the state of 33 bogs that were designated as special areas of conversation.

“Cutting, burning and draining were going on at 22 of them. Eight of them were in receipt of EU LIFE funding for reservation but at seven of these they were being actively cut,” Andrew Jackson said.

Peat extraction releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the air, creates soil erosion and the water drained off poisons rivers and lakes. If peat water enters the drinking water and is treated with chlorine, it forms a compound called Trihalomethanes, which is cancer-causing, it said.

Liam Cashman, of the EU Commission, said that 1% of the 1% of bog to be preserved was the most sensitive and the Government told them cutting would stop this year — but it continued and the commission took action.

“It was a deliberate policy not to apply the EU law and this was not denied by the Irish government.”

Independent MEP Marion Harkin said family owners of bogs needed to be compensated but the offer of €1,000 a year per acre for 15 years was not enough.

Danish MEP and committee member, Margrete Auken said, “This is one of the worst cases we have seen in a long time — and there has been some tough competition”.