The European Union bureaucrats know no limits. Everything from the shape of bananas to the size of bras-or should that be the shape of bras to the size of bananas-fall prey to their mania for devising new regulations, and new intrusions into the lives of people.

Now, according to an article that appeared in the Irish Independent newspaper on Friday, October 21, they take it upon themselves to become immersed in the bogs of Ireland, more particularly in the lives of local bog cutters, who, they say, will have to apply for planning permission if they want to cut turf to burn at home.

There is more. Individuals will also have to get an Environmental Impact Assessment issued by the Department of the Environment.

The measures are part of EU moves to save habitats.

Conor Creedon of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) denounced the curb on domestic turf-cutting as passing any boundary of sensible requirements. It was absolutely ridiculous to impose these demands on people cutting turf for domestic use, he said.

He added that would be contacting Environment Minister Dick Roche to request a more sensible approach that would comply with regulations while allowing "rural families to work their bogs".

It might seem illogical to plead for the preservation of one habitat, the Ballyshannon Unconformity, and to highlight the absurdity of Brussels bueaurocrats seeking to save bogs, in the same issue of this e-zine. But there is no illogicality. Bogs, if harvested properly, are a renewable resource. And if present predictions of longer and rainier winters, due to climate change, come true, the rate of renewal will quicken. There is no such renewal in store for the Unconformity. Once lost, it will be lost forever.

The number of small farmers has been declining for years. The turf they cut is for their own use. They are not to be compared with Bord na Mona, the State-sponsored Turf Board, which has stripped vast areas of bog for fuel to make electricity.

Turf requirements for domestic use will fall with their passing. In time, turf-cutting by hand may be relegated to the status of an ancient craft, displayed as an educational tool or tourist attraction.

The thought that small farmers, living in poor areas adjacent to bogs, are so rapacious in their turf cutting as to threaten the destruction of a whole habitat, is asinine. In this respect, the EU "is a ass".

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