Productive Meeting at Manor Hotel

Post date: May 20, 2010 9:38:06 PM

THE handover of Abbeyleix bog to the local people took another step forward with the formation of a legal entity and a panel of officers at a public meeting last week.Gary O'Keeffe, member of the steering committee, said the amenity will be good for Abbeyleix. he said there interest has grown in the bog.

"This is a huge opportunity for Abbeyleix and there could even be an opportunity to create employment from the site, so we want the whole community involved." He said there was a lot of interest in the public meeting and more than 100 turned out for a recent walk on the bog.

"This is a unique natural amenity that could get international recognition, It's a big amenity to be gifted to any community," Gary said. "We plan to take a project based management approach, so that we're not relying on the same people to do the work. There will be lots of smaller projects that people can get involved with, rather that just one big project."

Mr O’Keefe said there plans for the bog, but the committee is open to more suggestions. He said there would be potential for at least ten years of work on different aspects of the bog, but it is too big to be tackled as one big project.

One such project that is being proposed is a circular walk around the bog. "This is a major project," Gary explained, "and would also involve some side issues such as forest clearance. There is also the possibility of talking to international researchers and integrating them back in the community by maybe providing bean an ti type accommodation for the researchers while they would stay in Abbeyleix," he said.