Ms Niamh Brennan:

On availability, the sector is just about getting by. There are a number of court cases ongoing at the minute and what the sector's future will look like depends on their outcome. A lot of these companies and growers are investing a lot of money into alternatives and we wish to make clear that they are very willing to work with alternatives. There is no problem there but it needs to be commercially viable.

As for Mr. Seamus Boland's report, which was requested by the working group, one of the key requests of that report was to ascertain the exact requirements of the horticultural industry for peat. I do not think that was possible in that report. There is a lot of work to be done but the court case alluded to earlier showed light at the end of the tunnel regarding the sub-30 ha bogs. We think a possible way forward is for the county councils to be instructed that this bog, which is sub-30 ha, is not hydrologically linked. If they have that instruction, it would give people the confidence to extract the peat on that sub-30 ha bog. Where we were going last year, we were on the right track, but that hydrological linking was the biggest bone of contention. We need to overcome that point if we are to pursue the sub-30 ha rule, which can sustain the industry.