STATE COMPANY Bord na Móna is creating 50 new jobs in innovation, research and development, with a €50 million investment over the next five years.

Chief executive Gabriel D’Arcy told staff yesterday that the company has identified 50 new positions in innovation. The group has already begun recruiting the new staff.

Bord na Móna is withdrawing from the management and exploitation of peat bogs, the purpose for which it was established in 1946, and is moving into environmental services, waste management, horticulture and energy.

Its environmental business recently opened a $1 million innovation centre in North Carolina, and hopes to use this as a springboard to develop its waste water treatment division there.

It already supplies waste water systems to civic authorities in Italy and France.

The company is looking at making further investments and acquisitions through its other divisions.

The company owns waste manager Advanced Environmental Systems, which it bought in 2007, and has been using this to develop a presence in that sector.

It bid for the Irish business of French company Veolia late last year, but dropped out. It is understood the asking price was too high.

Bord na Móna owns Oweninney wind farm in Co Mayo, which was the first such commercial operation to begin supplying electricity to the national grid.