Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests. To follow on from Senator Daly's point, I ask for a comprehensive view of the level of engagement Bord na Móna has had with landowners and other affected parties, including the organisations we met before this. A number of questions have been raised by farming organisations about farm safety and other potential outworkings of the rewetting of their land.

I would be interested to see if Bord na Móna could give some form of clarification on the supports that would be in place for farmers who have concerns in that regard.

The focus of a number of submissions and discussions in this area have been on trying to get some form of assurance on flooding. One of the potential problems that arises from flooding, apart from the very obvious one, is that it could affect land use designation. The witnesses will be aware of the land around Lough Funshinagh where the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has issued penalties to single farm payments. It would be a gesture of goodwill for Bord na Móna to give an undertaking to underwrite farm payments in the case of payments being impacted due to permanent damage to farmland as a result of the proposed works. Could the witnesses give such an assurance today?

Given the presence of Bord na Móna, I wish to ask two peripheral questions. I seek an opinion based on the expertise of the witnesses on turf cutting and peat extraction under the current rules.