Mr. Gerry Ryan:

That is a good question, indeed it has exercised the minds of people in Bord na Móna ever since the 1940s. In the 1970s, we recruited people specifically with agricultural qualifications and degrees to determine whether it would be possible to create an agricultural enterprise from cutaway peatlands. We have a number of projects, not only the project close to Lough Boora which was formerly cutaway peatlands and is now agricultural grassland. The simple fact is that the economics of creating an agricultural grassland from cutaway peatlands does not justify the investment that is required to transform the landscape into an agricultural landscape. We would be delighted if the opposite was the case but unfortunately this is not our experience. That experience has been hard fought by investment and by trials of different types of agriculture, not just animal husbandry but also crop production, such as cereal crops. We have tried different things at different times since the 1970s and unfortunately none has proved to be economically viable. There is no agricultural use in that sense.