JOBS AFTER BOGS ARE WORKED OUT (1983)

JOBS AFTER BOGS WORKED OUT 

Leinster Leader, Saturday 26 April 1983. 

CONCERN TO ensure there would be employment for Bord na Mona workers in other forms of industry in their areas when Bord na Mona work on the bogs ceased was expressed at a meeting of Kildare Co. Council.

The subject was introduced by Mr. Jimmy O’Loughlin, who urged the Council to make their voices heard to ensure that when Bord na Mona ended operations on the bogs in the country there would be suitable alternative employment in those areas for those employees.

He was terribly suspicious of the policy of Bord na Mona in that regard. The whole philosophy of the Board was to keep the bogs working for turf and briquette production as long as possible. The Council should now be making strong representations to ensure that advance decisions were made while there was still time to leave enough peat in the bogs for agricultural, horticultural and kindred uses that would provide satisfactory alternative employment

Protection

Mr. Joe Bermingham, T.D lending his voice in support, said he was informed that in about 10 years some of the areas in which Bord na Mona employed men could be in a position that they would have to be closed. Now was the time to make preparations for alternative employment for those workers in industrial undertakings in those areas.

The above article from the Leinster Leader of April 1983 shows that concerns over the impact of the demise of secure jobs with Bord na Móna when work on Kildare bogs disappeared is not a new phenomenon. Today’s call for a ‘Just Transition’ was being expressed at Kildare County Council meeting in the early 1980s! 

Our thanks to Isobel Curley for typing this article.