The European Commission has decided to take legal action against Ireland for failing to protect its environmentally important bogs from commercial peat extraction, writes Politico.
The EC decision, which is particularly embarrassing for Ireland as it takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union in July, follows a damning report by the country’s Environmental Protection Agency that described widespread circumvention of EU bog protection rules.
The Commission’s statement on the case against Ireland said it had failed to implement EU requirements set out in a 2019 letter of formal notice and a 2020 warning. Brussels said Ireland had responded in part to the warnings by reducing peat extraction in bogs owned by Bord na Móna, a state-controlled body that for decades oversaw the draining of bogs to produce peat briquettes for electricity generation and household use. Since 2020, the institution has drastically changed its style of operation, renaming itself BnM, and presents itself as a conservator of bogs and a producer of green energy.
However, while the EC has acknowledged that the Irish Environment Protection Agency has applied EU requirements to large commercial facilities,
local authorities have failed to apply the law to sites with an area of less than 50 hectares.
The EC has indicated that, despite evidence of ongoing illegal activities, the law is not being applied at the local level. Consequently, the commission has generally recognized Ireland’s efforts as insufficient.
Peat extraction in Ireland has long been a politically sensitive issue, especially in the marshy interior of the country, where local farmers insist that they have the right to continue extracting and drying peat to use the carbon-rich soil as fuel. Some rural politicians, including MEP Luke Flanagan, have made the peat issue a populist rallying cry to woo voters.
The Irish government has responded mutedly to the EU decision. The Department for Climate, Energy and the Environment has highlighted the EC’s finding that the Environment Protection Agency applies the law to larger commercial producers extracting peat for horticultural and bedding use, and has pointed out that smaller peat extraction sites are entirely under the control of local authorities.
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