Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I welcome Mr. Boland. It has been a good while since we crossed paths on the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, IPCC. Mr. Boland has said that some of the bog owners did not co-operate. It needs to be put on the record that, in fairness to the industry, it sent emails to each of us and it would contradict that. Growing Media Ireland has said it has engaged and some smaller operators have said the same. I am not getting into it one way or the other because it is about resolving the issue. It is also of concern that ten months have gone by, another year basically, and nothing has happened. I am not saying that is Mr. Boland's fault.

I know the place near Rochfortbridge that Mr. Boland talked about. I worked near it some years ago. It is ironic that for taking out gravel, the bog can be bulldozed out of the way and then 22RBs are used and the sand is washed. The bog can be bulldozed out of the way, but if someone wanted to use that same bog for milling peat, they could not do it.

The witness is correct in saying there are large amounts bulldozed in one place. Maybe that would help in the mushroom industry. I do not know what area is needed for that. For the horticulture industry I think something in the region of 1,400 ha or 1,500 ha is needed around the country. That would be 50 of these 30 ha sections.

I met Mr. Boland on the bogs issue. LiDAR surveys have been done throughout the country. We have worked with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS. Every bog is different and there are different surfaces underneath. The hydrology and ecology of bogs, depending on the amount of lock or sand or the type of whatever is under it, can determine an awful lot. Upwelling is also an important consideration. The nub of this issue is that people were led to believe that if it was under 30 ha, that 30 ha had to be hydrologically separated from everything else. Even if it was separated by a drain, you would have to be able to show that there was no upwelling from one part to the other.

What I can not understand is why we cannot implement the 30 ha right around the country. I have seen the science done. It will show that depending on the bog, the distances range from 150 metres and 250 metres outside that where there may be an effect. I am talking about special areas of conservation, SACs, which are held to a higher standard than what we are talking about here, which are not designated bogs. Many of the bogs have the drain around them that would be down to the lock or the marl, whatever you want to call it.

On top of that I cannot understand why a directive is not given or a recommendation made about a 30 ha site with a buffer zone around it. There is an idea out there at the moment - it was promoted by certain people years ago as Mr. Boland will remember - that a bog is like a plastic bag in that if you punch it in one spot, the water will run out of it. The RPS Group and people from Queen's University Belfast have done scientific peer-reviewed research on that subject. It depends on the white, brown and black turf that is in a bog. Mr. Boland understands what I am talking about. Why can a recommendation not be made that if an owner can show a buffer zone around the 30 ha - a certain amount of scientific research must be done to show all this - a directive can be given to councils to allow for that, especially in the areas already being milled, as those are private property? It is as simple as that. No one can force the owners to return the bogs or rewet them or anything. People will become angrier if we go against them. We must work with them to try to resolve the issue. I wonder why something like that was not looked at in the recommendations.