Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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422. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the nature and extent of licences or permissions required by commercial turf extractors from his Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the local authority; the minimum acreage that can be harvested without having to seek such consents or permissions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17665/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Under planning legislation all development requires planning permission unless specifically exempted. Class 17 of Part 3 of Schedule 2 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001, as amended, provides that peat extraction in a new or extended area of less than 10 hectares, or peat extraction in a new or extended area of 10 hectares or more, where the drainage of the bogland commenced prior to the coming into force of these Regulations, is exempted development. Section 4(4) of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, provides that development is not exempted development if Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or appropriate assessment (AA) of the proposed development is required.

Article 93 of the 2001 Regulations provides that development set out in Schedule 5 of the Regulations is development prescribed for the purposes of EIA. Part 2 of Schedule 5 of the Regulations provides that peat extraction which would involve a new or extended area of 30 hectares or more requires mandatory EIA, while article 103 of the Regulations provides for the requirement to submit an EIS with an application for sub-threshold development where the planning authority considers that the development would be likely to have significant effects on the environment.

In addition, the extraction of peat in the course of business which involves an area exceeding 50 hectares is an integrated pollution control (IPC) activity licensable by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 (as amended).