TURFCUTTING HAS already been carried out on bogs where a ban was due to be implemented this year by Minister for the Environment John Gormley.
Roscommon county councillor Luke “Ming” Flanagan, who is spokesman for the Turfcutters and Contractors Association in the west, confirmed cutting has taken place.
The councillor, who has pledged to go to prison if necessary for cutting on the designated bogs, said in the absence of formal notification from the Minister, turfcutting would continue.
“We have nothing formal from the Minister and we have been waiting since October last year for the outcome of the interdepartmental group,” he said. “No one has . . . made any contact with the people who are being banned from the bogs and in the absence of this, cutting will continue.”
Mr Flanagan said if nothing official was forthcoming, he would proceed to harvest turf as usual from the family turf bank which is on one of the 32 designated raised bogs on which the ban will apply.
On April 2nd, a spokesman for the Minister said he was adamant that the derogation, which had allowed cutting on the bogs for the past 10 years, could not continue.
He also said the interdepartmental report on the ban on cutting on the bogs in the Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) would go to Cabinet this month.
Mr Flanagan said his organisation had offered a compromise solution.
“There is no co-operation with us and we have even put forward a code of practice we would work in a compromise situation,” he said.
He said the turfcutters, who had a greater interest than most in the preservation of the bogs and knew how to preserve them, only take a tiny proportion of the bogs involved.