Ireland will need to answer for its failure to protect peat bogs, swamps which act as ‘carbon sinks’, following a referral from the European Commission to the EU Court of Justice announced today (March 13). The EU executive has been warning Ireland to take action on the issue since 2011, and considers the country has failed to apply EU law designed to protect the habitats, specifically related to raised bogs and blanket bog habitats, claiming that continued “turf cutting” and “insufficient action” has degraded these “biodiversity hotspots”. In the midlands and the west of Ireland, using turf o…