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

There are a few points I want to come back to there. From the meeting I had with them, a lot of the bogs at issue were raised bogs once but a lot of the peat would be off them now. We have bogs around us, 3,000 ha that were re-wetted by the NPWS years ago and to be honest, there has not been a problem, provided it is done right. That is the bottom line. The ecologists I spoke to are talking about putting in sphagnum mosses and all the usual stuff. What surprises me is that under the habitats directive, one must be able to regenerate a bog in say, 30 years, and to be honest I do not think we will get active raised bog habitat flying in those bogs in that length of time. I will add a note for the farming organisations based on my own experience as a turf cutter and contractor, which I am proud of. I walked a lot of the bogs right round the country at the time of the debacle and up in the midlands - Mr. Rushe would know what I am on about here and so would the guys from County Offaly - there is what we call white turf. There is probably 8 ft or 10 ft of it around County Offaly and some parts of County Kildare, which gets very heavy.

However, on a lot of Bord na Móna's bogs, much of that has been used. It will be hundreds of years before they come back. If an intact bog in the midlands was to be rewetted, one would need to watch out. I would be afraid that the moisture would cause cracking of the bog and there would be bog slippage. The west of Ireland has more of an Atlantic raised bog. There is only a couple of feet of white turf and then there is brown and black turf, which is a totally different ball game.

Another thing I would say to Mr. Cullinan and to Mr. McCormack, which was raised earlier, is that there should be a national agreement with everything included. Local committees were mentioned as probably the best way to feed into that. This agreement needs to be made very clear. In fairness, 10,000 or 15,000 ha have been done so far and there have not been any problems. However, the one thing that needs to be made very clear by the farming organisations, and politicians will stand very solidly beside them, is that before any of this goes ahead, the agreement will be guaranteed in black and white. This agreement is not just for now but for 20, 40 and 60 years' time. If it is not guaranteed, farmers will not co-operate and it will not be done on the bogs. The farmers will stand up in each community. While this cannot be done at the moment, there is no reason it could not be done when Covid is over. I saw it before when people had to stand up and be counted. The farming community needs to say to Bord na Móna that there is an agreement, it has to be signed up to and farmers have to be protected. They are just a few things to watch out for, based on my experience of rewetting bogs ten or 15 years ago.