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Legislation to allow turf cutting to resume on 39 bogs is expected to pass within weeks.
Michael Fitzmaurice, Independent TD and chair of the Turf Cutters and Contractors Association, welcomed the news, saying it is “long-awaited”.
“We’re fighting this for a good while,” Fitzmaurice told the Irish Farmers Journal. “We got scientific evidence to show that there was no logic in keeping them under designation.”
There have been concerns around climate change and peat cutting and Fitzmaurice added that more State-owned bogs were coming under designation to make up the difference.
Licensing
Other legislation was recently passed, which decrees that all commercial peat extraction on sites over 30ha will be subject to licensing by the Environmental Protection Agency.
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