New regulations on turf could be used to help people who handed over their bogs to Bord Na Mona twenty years ago.
The bogs were handed over under peat conservation regulations in 2002, with the provision that people could cut turf there for their own use for their lifetime.
A High Court ruling in 2019 however has meant that people haven't had to right to access the turf since.
Longford/Westmeath Minister Robert Troy says he hopes that Minister Eamon Ryan will be able to clear up that anomaly when he clarifies the rules on turf use:
"There has been an unintended consequence of people who traditionally reared their own turf on Bord na Mona bogs. Those people voluntarily surrendered their banks of turf over two decades ago to Bord na Mona on the condition that they would be able to rear their own turf for the rest of their lives but because of a High Court decision, they are no longer able to do that
So I think that is another anomaly that Minister Ryan needs to address I think in the publication of these regulations it gives an opportunity to do that."
