Ireland is at risk of a “quite significant” from the European Union because people continue to cut turf, an agriculture journalist has warned.
Although turf has been cut as fuel source in Ireland for thousands of years, the practice is slowly coming to an end.
A decade ago in 2016, peat was responsible for 3.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions in Ireland.
However, it is one of the most polluting sources of fossil fuels and is also energy inefficient.
A pile of turf cut on Irish farmland. Picture by: Uwe Moser Moser / Alamy Stock Photo.The previous Government banned the sale of commercial turf and Bord na Móna has promised to end peat harvesting by 2030,
However, the European Commission believes the current rules are not being enforced and that Ireland is not complying with the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive.
As a result, the EU has referred the Irish Government to the European Court of Justice.
On Newstalk Breakfast, Pat O’Toole of the Irish Farmers’ Journal said turf cutting has long caused friction between Dublin and Brussels.
“This is going on since the mid-1980s, but I think that we've seen a step change in Ireland's approach to peat bogs since the previous Government came into power,” he said.
“Eamon Ryan grabbed the bull by the horns on this.
“It was part of the Programme for Government and there was significant progress made in terms of closing down the bogs, Bórd na Móna, who had been continuing to harvest peat off large bogs, has more or less shut down its operations.”
However, Mr O’Toole noted that it “take years for these cases to come to fruition”, if the ECJ rules against the Government, penlties “can be quite significant”.
“Ireland was found to be in breach of land eligibility rules around the Common Agricultural Policy payments in 2015 and a fine of €190 million was imposed,” he said.
“Now, that was negotiated back in the end to around €70 million and after about four years of toing and froing.
“But that did have to be paid and farmers had to have a significant amount of money clawed back.”
Main image: Men cutting turf in a peat bog field in Ireland. Picture by: Gabriel Cassan / Alamy Stock Photo
