Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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416. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his plans regarding the right to cut turf on bogs in cases in which there are there are turbary rights and in cases in which turf plots are privately owned. [21659/20]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended (the 2000 Act), all development, unless specifically exempted under the Act or associated Regulations, requires planning permission.

Under the Planning and Development Regulations 2001, peat extraction-

- in a new or extended area of less than 10 hectare, or

- in a new or extended area of 10 hectares or more, where the drainage of the bogland commenced prior to 21 January 2002

is exempted development.

This exemption is subject to a restriction at Section 4(4) of the 2000 Act, whereby that that exempted development status is lost if an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) under the EU's EIA Directive or Appropriate Assessment (AA) under the EU's Habitats Directive is required in respect of that development.

Peat extraction involving a new or extended area of 30 hectares or more requires EIA and therefore planning permission. Peat extraction below that threshold may require EIA if it is considered that it would be likely to have significant effects on the environment. Any peat extraction which would be likely to have significant effects on a European Site (a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) or a Special Protected Area (SPA), or candidate area, designated under the Habitats Directive) requires an Appropriate Assessment and therefore planning permission.

While the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963, which preceded the 2000 Act, had provided that the use of land for agriculture, including the use of land for turbary, was exempted from the requirement to obtain planning permission, under the 2000 Act turbary was no longer included under the general exemption for agriculture on the basis that this activity could potentially have significant environmental effects.

Therefore, with regard to planning requirements for peat extraction, there is no distinction made between turf cutting development on bogs in cases in which there are turbary rights and in cases in which turf plots are privately owned.

The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, with the assistance of my Department, is engaged in addressing the complexity of the current dual system of planning regulation and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Pollution Licensing for large-scale commercial peat extraction with the aim of streamlining the peat extraction consenting process, as recommended by the Government’s National Peatlands Strategy 2015 and informed by the Just Transition Progress Report published 22 May 2020. Follow on this work, my Department will focus on the development of a new regulatory framework in respect of smaller scale peat extraction, in accordance with the National Peatlands Strategy, which will seek to ensure compliance with appropriate EU environmental legislation.