Mr. Dan Curley:

In answer to Deputy Carthy, we thought the consultation was not good. We sought a meeting with the Minister of State as far back as last July, anticipating this was going to happen and she basically refused to meet us all along. We did meet for a while about three weeks ago on a Zoom call but some of the plans had actually been dealt with, though they did extend the time for submissions. The consultation therefore has not been good, to answer that part of the question.

On the second part - and this is key - there is no ambition to get the scheme back on the bogs and the plants back on the bogs. Rewetting simply will not do that. Rewetting also brings an awful lot of dangers. The committee has heard about the ones for farmers but there are also water quality dangers. If there is bare peat with water on it and there is a bad flood event, some of that peat is going to end up in the local rivers, it is as simple as that. Rewetting and the unnatural holding back of water is a dangerous game, therefore. When it gets to summer time we might then finish up with a dry, cracked desert because the evaporation will take the water out anyway. We are saying there needs to be a little more ambition in this regard. The only ambition the board and Department seem to have is to re-wet the bogs and hope forlornly that it will all come out right. They need to get in there. Bog obviously stores carbon but one gets the carbon to go in by getting the plants back on it.

Second, these are all natural ecosystems, they are wild areas which everyone is crying out for and as I said earlier, they are also great for pollinator plants. A lot of the bog plants are superb pollinator plants. This is, therefore, a real opportunity to get this right. Deputy Carthy is right that a lot of money is being put in here and it deserves to be spent properly. The board and Department need to look a little bit wider than they are doing and engage. It is down to local people. Local people know their bogs, they know the level of water in the bogs. If they engage properly with them they will get this right, if they do not, this could be one ferocious mess and be one for a long time to come.