The separate trials of two turf-cutters, charged with cutting turf on protected bogland in East Galway nine years ago, has collapsed at Galway Circuit Criminal Court when the State decided not to prosecute them.
Patrick Lavin, from Mullen, Frenchpark, Co, Roscommon, and Thomas Ward, from Gort an tSléibhe, Claregalway, had always indicated since first being brought before the courts in 2015, that they would be pleading not guilty to a charge of cutting turf on a protected bog near Ballymoe on the Galway/Roscommon border on June 28, 2013.
“It is not the intention of the prosecution to call any evidence and I’m instructed to enter a nolle prosequi in both cases. A jury for both will no longer be required,” Mr Conall MacCarthy, prosecuting counsel for the State, informed the packed courtroom on Wednesday.
“There is no longer a prosecution against you and you are free to go. Have a good day,” Judge Brian O’Callaghan told both men.
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A group of fifteen supporters, led by Independent TD, Michael Fitzmaurice, waited in the Courthouse lobby for both men to emerge from the courtroom.
Afterwards, on the sheltered steps of the nearby Town Hall, Mr Fitzmaurice said he and the group welcomed the State’s decision not to prosecute the turf-cutters.
He then launched a scathing attack on EU bureaucrats, whom he said, were not elected representatives but who were dictating to the Irish people by intervening in the real progress that had been made over the last five years between the State working in partnership with rural dwellers.
He said that in recent years, there had been “huge engagement” with the National Parks (and Wildlife Service) and that engagement would continue as it was the most important in helping to resolve the issues surrounding the cutting of turf.
“This isn’t a day for winners or losers. These are ordinary people that basically defend their piece of bog or their turf-cutting rights, and in fairness to the people right around this country, over the last five years - and in fairness to the National Parks - they have engaged constructively with us.
“That will continue and I think Europe should look at the amount of engagement and the progress that has been made over the last five years in resolving these issues.
When asked what compromises turf-cutters would eventually have to arrive at with the National Parks, Mr Fitzmaurice said: “It’s not just about compromise. We’ve worked together for the last five years. If you look at the amount of bogs when we started off, it was 53 bogs - there’s 14 bogs at the moment that we’re putting solutions together for four to five more of them at the moment.
“That’s what you call making progress, on both sides. And we have found relocation bogs, we have science done as well on bogs that are more difficult. Every bog is different, there is no ‘one size that fits all’.