Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Lucas for appearing before the committee today, for his contribution and for answering our questions. I commend him on his excellent answers to date. I also commend him, the Department and the Minister of State on stepping in to facilitate this cross-departmental and interagency group which is going to seek to resolve this situation in the short and long term. It is an important issue.

I am delighted to hear Dr. Prasad has been appointed chair of the group. Deputy Carthy may not know about him. Dr. Prasad has more than 40 years' experience in this area. He was the chief scientist for Bord na Móna. He worked for more than 15 years with the New Zealand department of agriculture. He has more than 40 years of expertise in total. We are very fortunate to have a man of his calibre leading this working group and guiding the process.

I take issue with Deputy Carthy’s statement, which betrays his and his party’s abject knowledge of the environment. Even the industry witnesses we heard from today provided statements, if he cared to read them, which said we need to transition away from the use of peat. I think even Deputy Fitzmaurice would agree with that. I absolutely reject Deputy Carthy’s position. He implied this is some kind of green agenda or ideology. I want to put on record we are fully supportive of the industry and we believe the working group that has been put together, which is led by Dr. Prasad, is the right way to go about things. I am actually embarrassed a Member of the Oireachtas would show such abject misunderstanding of this issue. This is what we hear from Sinn Féin all along. I will leave it at that.