DUBLIN — The European Commission is taking Ireland to court over its failure to protect environmentally crucial boglands from commercial turf-cutters.
Today’s move — particularly embarrassing for Ireland, given it’s taking over the EU Council presidency in July — follows a damning report from its own Environmental Protection Agency that documented widespread flouting of EU laws on protecting bogs.
The Commission said in a statement that it is referring Ireland to the Court of Justice of the European Union over its failure to enforce EU requirements, as detailed in a 2019 formal notice and a 2020 reasoned opinion — the final legal warning.
Brussels said Ireland had partially responded to that pressure by curtailing harvesting on sites owned by Bord na Móna (the Peat Board). This state-controlled agency, for decades, oversaw bogland drainage and the mass production of peat bricks to be burned in electric power plants and home furnaces. That agency, since 2020, has sharply pivoted and now styles itself as a peatland conservator and green energy generator rebranded as BnM.
However, while the Commission noted that the Irish EPA has enforced EU law protecting boglands on some larger commercial sites, local councils were failing to enforce the law on sites below 50 hectares (123.5 acres).
“Despite evidence of these ongoing illegal activities, enforcement action at the local level is not being taken,” said the Commission, which deemed Irish efforts overall “insufficient.”
Turf-cutting has long been a politically sensitive issue in Ireland, particularly in the bog-intensive midlands, where farmers insist they have a right to keep cutting and drying the carbon-rich soil into burnable bricks. Some rural politicians, including MEP Luke “Ming” Flanagan, have made it a populist plank in their appeal to voters.
Ireland’s government offered a muted response to the EU action.
The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment noted the Commission’s acknowledgment that the EPA was enforcing the law against larger commercial harvesters, who supply peat for use in horticulture and animal bedding. It said enforcement on smaller sites was a matter principally for local councils.