A TD has said that farmers and landowners in the midlands region have expressed “serious concerns” over rewetting proposals from Bord na Móna.
According to Laois-Offaly TD Carol Nolan, there is a perception among farmers and landowners that there is an “unwillingness” on the part of Bord na Móna to provide written guarantees around the impact of its rewetting proposals on existing farmland.
Nolan also said that landowners are further concerned about Bord na Móna’s “failure to heed concerns around the environmental impact of its windfarm projects”.
Moreover, Nolan said that there is a “lingering sense of disbelief” that Bord na Móna has not yet responded to concerns that were raised in June on foot of its application for substitute consent for historic peat extraction at the Garryhinch and Garrymore bogs, part of the Allen Bog group.
Substitute consent is consent from An Bord Pleanála in relation to works that have already taken place. There are several reasons why substitute consent may be sought.
These include:
- Where a court decision sets aside an existing planning permission in a case involving an environmental impact assessment (EIA), or a decision that an EIA or appropriate assessment may have been required;
- Where original planning permission may have been flawed or set aside by a court;
- Where “exceptional circumstances” arise during works that may require consent from the planning authority.
Bord na Móna said in June that the purpose of the application is to seek to “regularise the planning status of the peat extraction works and all associated bog development works that were carried out” on the two bogs in question, on which peat extraction ceased in 2020.
Responding to this at the time, Nolan asked: “Is this an effective admission from Bord na Móna that the actions it has taken around peat extractions and indeed rewetting have rested on a dubious or indeed non-existent legal basis in terms of planning permission?”
Speaking today (Monday, August 28), Nolan claimed that, because this issue – as well as the rewetting and windfarm issues – there is a “palpable sense now among the community groups and the farmers…that Bord na Móna is acting like a law unto itself”.
“This is particularly true with respect to both the rewetting proposals, the ongoing absence of guarantees for farmers, as well as the railroading of major projects like the construction of the company’s unwanted and unloved wind farms that are destroying our bogs.
“This kind of lordly, feudal attitude to the land by a commercial semi-state simply cannot continue. It is time for Bord na Móna to recognise that its actions are generating significant pushback among the very communities that it claims to value as partners,” the TD said.
She added: “This is not the way to treat people you say you respect. Bord na Móna must provide guarantees for farmers, and it must immediately reassess the potentially catastrophic damage that its wind farms will generate for the bogs and indeed local biodiversity.”