Mr. John Neenan:

The current legal situation is that one has to apply for leave to apply for substitute consent. That is the background. If and when one gets that, one then has to apply for substitute consent. If one gets that, one must apply for planning permission. Our view is that that process will take four to five years. That is why we are saying the industry will be closed by then. Our legal advisers have stated that under European and Irish law, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage can exempt peat from the planning process. That would allow us to go to the EPA for a licence. The Acts governing the EPA will have to be beefed up to take in the points raised in the court judgment. It will have to prohibit the EPA from granting a licence unless there are exceptional circumstances. It will require the EPA to consider whether to direct temporary cessation of activity pending a decision on the application for a licence. The EPA will have to consider the historical and future effects of the activity before granting a licence and require the holder of an existing integrated pollution control, IPC, licence which was granted before the EPA to have the power to complete an EIA.

That was in respect of Bord na Móna, however, and is not relevant now.

Those proposals, if implemented, would remove uncertainty and the risk of industrial closure while safeguarding all the jobs. We would be responsibly harvesting peat under the control of the EPA. We have given that on a number of occasions.