Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 March 2014
14. Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of turf cutters on special area of conservation bogs who have signed the final agreement with his Department on relocation/compensation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10743/14]
Amharc ar fhreagraHow many people have signed up to the final agreement on compensation? Perhaps the Minister will make a statement on it.
Under the cessation of turf cutting compensation scheme, three types of legal agreements have been and are being issued by my Department. The first is a final legal agreement for qualifying turf cutters who are signing up to the annual payment of €1,500, index-linked, for 15 years. The second is a relocation interim legal agreement for qualifying turf cutters who have expressed an interest in relocation but no relocation site is currently available for them. This relocation interim legal agreement provides for the payment of €1,500, index-linked, or a supply of 15 tonnes of cut turf per annum, while these applicants are awaiting relocation to non-designated bogs. The third is a relocation final legal agreement. This agreement has been issued to qualifying turf cutters where a site has been assessed as suitable for relocation and is ready, or can be made ready, for use for domestic turf cutting.
Turf cutters who sign and return the applicable legal agreement to my Department will also receive a once-off incentive payment of €500.
A total of 1,711 legal agreements have been issued and my Department is continuing to issue agreements to qualifying applicants. Applicants have been requested to return the completed legal agreements within four months of the date of issue. A total of 1,209 legal agreements have been returned to my Department thus far. The majority of legal agreements returned are final legal agreements as most of these agreements are from qualifying turf cutters who have opted to receive the annual payment under the scheme. To date, in the region of 1,050 once-off incentive payments of €500 have been made to applicants in respect of these legal agreements.
An impression is being given by the Minister to the media that the vast majority of turf cutters on the so-called special areas of conservation have given up cutting turf and signed up to his plan. The reality is that but 1,209 legal agreements out of over 9,000 have been returned by those with turbary rights and landowners in the so-called special areas of conservation.
That is not the vast majority. It is approximately 15% and the other 85% are being abandoned, not by me but by the State.
I was interested to hear an earlier reply the Minister gave on the bogs issue. He appears to think that the de-designation of some of the NHAs has not left grasslands that farmers need to use in parts that were not de-designated. The Minister said that none of them had been put in those areas. Since he said that I have received two messages. One is from a landowner in Cashel bog in Leitrim, whose house and land are in this designated area. The other is from somebody in Carricknaughton, who has acres of grassland within the area the Minister does not intend to de-designate. What the Minister said earlier is incorrect. He has now created a situation where people will have to ask permission to put cattle on their land. It appears they will also have to ask permission to open the front door of their house, because the Minister has left houses within these designations. Earlier he smiled and suggested this was not the case, but it is. I can bring the Minister to meet the people concerned.
I said there was no turf being cut on grassland. The fact is that this is rather complex. Sometimes bog was not registered in people's names and so forth, so to have 1,200 legal agreements returned to the Department is quite an achievement. Anybody who is familiar with turbary rights and bog ownership will be aware that in many cases bogs were not registered in people's names. It is complicated. When bogs were passed on either through purchase or inheritance sometimes the bog was not registered and that is a challenge for us as well as for the people who are affected. In addition, not everybody with turbary rights was an active turf cutter. It is only people who were cutting turf for the previous five years who are affected, so not everybody who owns a bog or has turbary rights on a bog will have this legal agreement applied to them.
With regard to grasslands, when these SACs were first designated, they were based on information dating back as far as the 1970s and 1980s and obviously there was some land reclamation and bog cut away. Those people are being informed now. Anybody with any connection to the NHAs in this instance is being informed, so it is much broader than the people cutting turf on them. If the Deputy has particular cases in mind, he should bring them to my attention. There is no intention to prevent anybody from carrying out their normal farming practices. I urge the Deputy to bring these cases to me and I will have them investigated.
