Michael Conaghan (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation. Obviously, Bord na Móna is a very successful company and most people are extremely proud of it. The company is an indigenous entity and has adapted to the winds of change.

I wish to ask about the scale and sophistication of the operation used to extract peat from the ground. The process in question is extremely crude in comparison to the traditional methods used to extract peat in the past, which had a very slight impact on the Earth. How sustainable is Bord na Móna's way of operating from an environmental point of view? I do not know whether the company is obliged to calculate what is the impact of its production processes but I presume that this would be the case. I have experience of cutting turf with a spade and I am interested in the different methods used to extract peat.