Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 February 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion

Mr. Brian Lucas:

In October 2019, the working group produced an issues paper. It looked at the background to peatlands, the importance of horticulture to the economy, peat moss versus the alternatives and the challenges in moving from peat moss use. Then it set out some key consultation questions. As I said, 34 submissions were received, and out of that was produced the review report published by the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, last year. Again, the issues identified in both the issues paper and the review report were taken up in the previous session by Deputies, Senators and the committee witnesses. One of the things that became clear from the submissions received was that there was a general view that a working group should be set up to see how we could move forward. As I said, we will have the relevant Departments, the non-governmental organisations and industry stakeholders under an independent chair, all in the same virtual meeting, to see whether we can come up with a solution to both the immediate problem and the medium to long-term problem. In all the documents to which I have referred - and I was involved with the previous working groups - there are no easy answers. There are pluses and minuses, and no one is denying that, so we need to see what we can come up with and what solutions we can come up with now. Then all the relevant Government Departments - I think the committee knows which ones will be involved - as well as the NGOs and the industry stakeholders can be brought together. Let us see what solutions we can arrive at. As I said, there is legislation in place already. The basis of that is EU law. We have to see, as witnesses said in the previous session, whether there is an alternative to that solution such that we can get in quickly in order at least to get us over this season and into the next season.

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