Labour Party candidate Michael D Higgins has questioned why turf-cutters picketed a fundraiser for his presidential election campaign in Galway yesterday.
Mr Higgins was responding to criticisms levelled at him by up to 250 supporters of the Irish Turf Cutters and Contractors Association (ITCCA) who staged a protest outside a fundraising brunch for his campaign in Galway's Meyrick Hotel.
ITCCA chairman Michael Fitzmaurice said Mr Higgins was the Government minister who signed the EU Habitats directive into law in 1997.
"The results of his actions on that day now means that the Irish state, which he seeks to become president of, is confiscating large tracts of bog from the legal owners and making criminals of the people who cut and harvest turf thereon," Mr Fitzmaurice said.
Mr Higgins said this was not an issue for whoever is elected president, but he believed conciliation on this issue was possible. In signing in the directive, he had only outlawed use of the "sausage" machine for cutting turf, and he was not party to subsequent negotiations with Europe during a derogation period, he said.
Turf-cutters and small farmers from Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary and Kildare participated in the protest, as one of a series being held since the Government approved new powers to enforce EU environmental directives.
Late last month, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan allow search warrants to be issued by District Courts for lands or premises where breaches are suspected.
The action resulted in the ITCCA withdrawing from the Peatlands Council, established by the government to try and resolve the issue.
The European Commission has denied that EU law favours industrial turf-cutters over small farmers and operators, and has pointed out that the main threat is to active raised bogs, but also to some active blanket bogs.
Ireland's peatlands are critical carbon stores and prevent floods, and EU law protects only a very small number, it has said.
