PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)

As the weather gets colder and the long nights approach, I would again like to bring attention to the turf that continues to lie wet on the banks of three south-east Galway bogs. On Ardgraigue, Barroughter and Cloonmoylan bogs, families have been prevented from returning to save the turf by a High Court injunction at the behest of the NPWS earlier this year. These families now face into the winter with empty turf sheds. The NPWS has offered turf bank owners a once-off payment of €24,000 to walk away from the historic right to cut turf in order to facilitate the rewetting of these bogs. However, in excess of 40 families have declined this offer, and for good reason. It simply does not make financial sense. On average, a house that is heated by turf and uses a turf-fuelled range for cooking daily will require around six hoppers of turf for the year. The cost to a homeowner of hiring a contractor to cut these six hoppers of turf is approximately €600. In the absence of having access to the turf, in our local south-east Galway fuel depot the cost of replacing these six hoppers of turf with the equivalent energy in alternative solid fuel such as green willow logs and smokeless coal is approximately €7,540. Subtract from this the fuel allowance of €924 annually and this leaves an annual fuel cost for heating and cooking of €6,610. In as little as four years the compensation for walking away from an intergenerational right to cut turf on the family's bog will have been spent on alternative solid fuels.

Over three months ago in this House I called on the Minister to sign an activity requiring consent, ARC, to allow these law-abiding families back onto their bogs to save their turf that had already been cut and laid out on the turf banks. This has not been done. The winter is approaching fast. The time to save this turf has unfortunately passed. Elderly and vulnerable people in my constituency are facing into a winter with empty turf sheds and, in many cases, without other means of purchasing fuel because it simply makes no long-term sense to them and they do not want to sell the turbary rights of their land to the NPWS.This should be their prerogative. This is indeed a shameful situation and it must be remedied in advance of next spring.