Independent TD Carol Nolan has said that farmers and landowners continue to express serious concerns regarding the unwillingness of Bord na Móna (BNM) to provide written guarantees around the impact of its rewetting proposals on existing farmland as well as its failure to heed concerns around the environmental impact of its windfarm projects.
The Laois Offaly TD went on to state that there is also a lingering sense of disbelief that BNM has not responded to revelations in early Summer that its Planning and Advocacy Team had advised communities surrounding the Garryfinch and Garrymore bogs, which form part of the Allen Bog Group, that it intended to submit an application to An Bord Pleanála for substitute consent for the decades long peat extraction that took place on these bogs:
“There is a palpable sense now among the community groups and the farmers that are coming to me that BNM is acting like a law unto itself,” said Deputy Nolan.
“This is particularly true with respect to both the rewetting proposals; the ongoing absence of written guarantees for farmers as well as the railroading of major projects like the construction of the companies 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 BNM to recognise that its actions are generating significant pushback among the very communities that it claims to value as ‘partners.’
“This is not the way to treat people you say you respect.”
“BNM must provide written 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,” concluded Deputy Nolan.