Government told to review their decision to withhold Leitrim landslide report

Last month, the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications was told in a report from the commissioner of environmental information that they should review their decision not to share a Geological survey report about landslides in Leitrim, Donegal, and Kerry.

The Geological Survey was commissioned after peat landslides tore through the Drumkeeran region of Leitrim in 2020, with similar events happening in other counties.

The focus of the geological report is to determine the environmental and human factors that contributed to the landslides in order to inform protocols to stop similar events from happening again.

At the time of the landslides in Leitrim which saw over 36 hectares of agriculture and forestry land covered in C.160,000 tonnes of peat and vegetation, National Parks and Wildlife Service officials indicated that the bog slide originated at the southern flank of a forestry plantation.

Concerns around afforestion in the area have been ripe for years amongst local groups, like Love Leitrim, as forestation on unsuitable peat sites can cause landslides. 

Similarly, the erection of windmills on peat mountains can also bring about landslides, with the groups in North Leitrim like Save Dough Mountain and Leitrim Wind Aware joining more than a dozen other groups outside the Dáil last May to protest windmills being built on unstable mountain terrains.

“ I think that it is vital that (this survey) comes out but they don’t want it … there is no reason to withhold this information, if you have it and its on record. The only reason to withhold the information is that if you have plans for farms or for forestry in an area, well if it is on record that this area is prone to land slippage then that would help the likes of people who are opposed to windfarms or local people,” said Joseph Sheerin of Save Dough Mountain. 

Earlier this year, Minister for the Environment Eammon Ryan was asked to share his department's survey but said that they would not be doing so until the end of the year, stating the survey was in a draft phase.

The Commissioner for Environmental Information, an independent organisation set up to review public requests for information, has reviewed the decision and said that the government did not provide a sufficient reason for withholding the report and urges it to either provide a better reason or release the survey. 

“They need to release the study. Everybody needs to be aware of the impact when these events occur, and the long-term impacts, everyone sees the immediate impact, and most of the time the immediate impact is obvious, but the long term impacts are not always obvious,” said Leitrim Cllr Padraig Fallon.

The councillor who is based around the Drumkeeran area says he remembers walking the affected land as a teenager and says the effects of the bog slides are still felt today. 

 “A lot of this land, in my view, is still impacted, particularly when we have heavy rainfall. We had tens of thousands of tons of bog move down onto lower lands, obviously its capacity drying out time is not the same, and it still affects farmers.”

“So I think that they definitely need to release it, and release it now. Maybe they do have a good reason for not releasing it, but if they do they need to come out and say what that is, because what we see in the past where reports have been delayed and not released, there is a perception amongst those impacted when these reports aren't relayed that all isn’t well here.”

The department's decision to withhold the survey information was appealed by the group Right To Know and now the department has until the 25th of November to either provide the information or find a reason to withhold information on the survey.

"The Department is planning to issue this report in the coming weeks," said Leah McDaid, spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications.

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