Legal complexity hinders action on illegal peat cutting

Local authorities have said a lack of resources and legal complexity are the reason for a failure to enforce planning regulations around illegal peat harvesting and called for the establishment of a regional enforcement authority.

Last week, Barry Kehoe, chief executive, and Cathaldus Hartin, senior planner, Westmeath County Council, attended an Oireachtas Joint Committee to outline measures the council take to deal with illegal peat extraction.

The Joint Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy met on Wednesday December 3, for a hearing with stakeholders on engagement on illegal peat extraction.

Committee cathaoirleach, Naoise Ó Muirí, TD, said: “The Committee is very aware that illegal extraction of peat in Ireland is a significant environmental concern and that many areas have been damaged by unauthorised peat extraction activities.”

In earlier submissions, the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) highlighted the devastating impact illegal peat extraction has on natural heritage including the destruction of habitats and loss of biodiversity.

The EPA were critical of seven local authorities for failing to enforce planning and environmental law to stop harvesting of peat for use in horticulture on 38 sites in their functional areas.

The local authority representative submission outlined their efforts to combat illegal peat extraction, as well as providing clarity on the enforcement and monitoring by regulatory bodies.

The two members of the Westmeath County Council executive were joined by Anna-Marie Delaney, chief executive, and Andrew Murray, director of services, from Offaly County Council.

In a joint opening statement read by Ms Delaney, the council officials spoke of “significant progress made in developing a strategy to combat the problem”.

In an earlier submission, The Environmental Protection Agency identified 38 large-scale unauthorised peat extraction sites across seven local authority areas.

The department’s 2013 peatland survey identified approximately 126 sites where potential industrial-scale peat extraction was occurring, indicating the scale of the enforcement challenge.

“These sites present unprecedented complexity for planning enforcement,” Ms Delaney said. “They involve highly fragmented ownership structures – one site in Offaly has 70 registered owners, while sites in Roscommon involve 40 owners across 37 separate plots.

“In many instances, registered landowners have denied involvement in extraction activities, making identification of actual operators extremely difficult without specialist investigative resources.”

The local authority statement pointed out that the enforcement challenge “extends beyond peat extraction”, adding: “The European Commission has also initiated proceedings regarding 18 quarry sites across nine local authority areas, with some overlap between the affected counties.”

Local authorities have encountered “fundamental barriers”, pointing to the legislative framework governing peat extraction that changed approximately 10 times between 1990 and 2019.

“Multiple enforcement cases have been stalled when operators successfully claimed reliance on exempted development provisions, requiring authorities to prove that bogs were not drained prior to 2001 or that extraction exceeds domestic scale,” Ms Delaney said.

They pointed to resources as a difficulty when tackling the problem: “Legal costs in these cases have reached seven figures, with additional exposure to third-party costs and compensation claims. These risks cannot be justified at individual authority level, particularly given current demands on local government resources for housing, infrastructure and essential services.”

The council representatives said an authority should be established to oversee enforcement of regulations.

Mr Kehoe spoke about the involvement of local authorities with the Harte Peat Court of Appeal case concerning a dispute between the company and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over peat extraction without an EPA licence.

Harte Peat appealed a High Court order that granted an injunction to stop its operations in Westmeath, which the EPA argued were unauthorised and environmentally damaging. In August 2024, the Court of Appeal allowed the company’s appeal, finding that the injunction was based on a flawed interpretation of the law regarding the duration of the activity.

Mr Kehoe said addressing such issues is stretching local authority resources: “It became very complex because of the changes in planning and environmental law over the period under which the extraction of peat was undertaken.

The evidence that was required to prove the EPA’s case was very difficult to administer and bring to the courts.

“The nature of the activity is that it is sporadic in a lot of the cases we are speaking of. It only occurs occasionally. The gathering of evidence in those cases is difficult,” he said.

Mr Kehoe called for an “appropriately skilled and resourced” regional enforcement authority with expertise in planning and environmental law, technical assessment, site investigation, complex litigation management and programme management.

In her address, Ms Delaney said such an authority is necessary to address the problem: “This is not about local authorities stepping back from their responsibilities – it is about ensuring that enforcement action has the specialist expertise, financial backing and legal support necessary to succeed.”