Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have gone into another world now about the 53 raised bog SACs and how we will save Ireland with them. That is not what the habitats directive was about.

It is not helpful when the likes of the NPWS are trying to resolve issues on the 53 raised bog SACs.

The National Parks and Wildlife Services, NPWS, has called them the best bogs in the country. When one has a bog that is functioning and has been rewetted, and the active raised bog is beginning to work back again, what is the carbon sequestration per acre on that bog? What is the tonnage per year, per acre? I have been at a conference, but I would like to know the position on a raised bog. I know that blanket bog is totally different. Blanket bog regenerates itself much more quickly than the raised bog.

The other point made by Dr. Renou-Wilson was that she said that if one cuts on the outside of the bog, that the middle of it is destroyed. I have been with Ray Flynn from Queen's University Belfast, who I am sure Dr. Renou-Wilson knows well, and with RPS and have been on complexes of 3,000 acres. They can prove that maybe for 200 m or 250 m, such a cutting would have an effect, but the bog will remain intact inside of that. One has to be able to show, under the habitats directive, that one does not have an adverse effect, which is the wording of the directive. Dr. Renou-Wilson's statement earlier that the middle of the bog would get degraded is not correct.

As to the ongoing de-designating bogs debacle, there are category 1 and 2 bogs, degraded bogs, and ones that were not worthwhile regenerating. When the scientists such as RPS went out and studied this - people do not want to look into this - it was completely useless to try to put these bogs back. Consequently, it decided to go around the country to look for other bogs that would help it in its overall plan of reaching the required targets. It reached these numbers, in order to make the new plan, which was a sensible thing to do, rather than at Raheenmore Bog - our witnesses may be familiar with this bog - which was taken over and given to the National Parks and Wildlife Service in 1979 by Bord na Móna. Liners were put into it that blew out of the way. Efforts were being made to restore the bog. To this day, this is a bog that it is virtually impossible to regenerate or to have re-function. This can be compared with bogs where I am from in the west of Ireland and where people cut domestic turf in which the base of the bog is still there and will always be there; it is like biting at the toes of an elephant. Those bogs are able to regenerate, can be rewetted and one can work with them so much better.

I listened earlier where the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, was getting stick in respect of this 28 million tonnes, or 11 billion or whatever was the figure. In fairness, I cannot say that I am going to go into anyone's house and say that I am taking it over, no more than I can say that I am going to go into a person's private property in a bog. The NPWS cannot do that. On top of that, it has rewetted some bogs and will have difficulty for the simple reason that there are private landowners with whom it would not be familiar because there are turbary and fee simple rights. In fact, there are eight different types of rights involved with bogs. Those people will shove their heads above the parapet shortly and they can ask for their drains to be reopened where rewetting was done because the NPWS went in on private property. Either we are going to be communists in this country and are going to take over the world or we are we going to sit down, talk, and work with people in a proper fashion.

I seek an answer to those questions about the sequestration in respect of what the NPWS call those charm bogs in the 53 raised bogs SACs, that is, the tonnage of sequestration. Mr. Lucas has had people dealing with an issue in the past few years with the regeneration of bogs whereby a machine has to be brought in on it with low ground pressure. Is the estimate of €5 million equal to about 17 diggers for 240 days, which is 17 people for the same period? Is that a fair assessment what Mr. Lucas's Department has done has done so far around the country? We have seen the Bord na Móna side of this, which would be a more intensive approach to regenerate a bog because the bogs the NPWS are working in have vegetation and very little drainage on them in comparison, because the drainage done would have been done at the time of the council work. Domestic turf cutters do not need drainage on a bog to cut it, which we need to be clear about. I am aware that the Department is going to some bogs at the moment, Carrowbehy Bog, for example. That is the work that €5 million does on bogs that are fairly intact. If one looks at the Bord na Móna bogs, as was pointed out earlier, there are drains every 12 m, this work would be much more intense for the machines. Would Mr. Lucas consider that there will be less work will get done because of that?