Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will answer because I am the only Government Deputy left in the session. This cannot be justified. There is no justification for it. Whatever way you look at it, whether it is upside-down or downside-up, the import of peat into this country is completely illogical. I think it was Ms McManus who said that if you put a credit scorecard on the emissions in importing peat, it has to do more damage to the environment than harvesting our own. There is no logic to this.

I have said that in the Dáil previously and I have no qualms about saying it in any forum that this is just illogical. It makes no sense whatsoever. The other evening we had someone before the committee who was speaking about the restoration of land. Again, much of that was not logical either. It is a regulation coming from Brussels that will give us a lot of headaches going forward. Hopefully there can be a bit of common sense. All the speakers have talked about common sense and that is what we badly need here, a little dose of common sense. People are on their high horses about ceasing peat production. I think we have all conceded that peat production for generating energy has to stop because it is not good for the environment. We are accepting that principle but there is a miniscule amount of land needed for this. If you are talking about a circular economy, this peat, as I think Mr. Dunne said, is not to be burned, but it is going back into the soil again, so it is a circular economy. We chop straw and put it back into the ground. This is finding its way back into the ground again and it is enriching the soil or wherever it is spread. There is no defence of this.

The witnesses asked us what we are going to do. We will have a private meeting in the next few days as a committee where we will discuss how we can take this forward. As I said, we have devoted time to this in the past. I thought last time this topic left us that we had a solution for it, but unfortunately, we did not. I think it was Mr. Neenan who said that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine felt that the sub-30 ha would be the solution for the problem. We can clearly see now that is not working in practice or is not able to work in practice in the way the legislation is framed. This has to be done immediately. As a member of the governing party, in the morning I will raise this issue with the Taoiseach and his main adviser. This is a serious embarrassment, as Deputy Flaherty has said. It is a serious embarrassment to me is a rural Deputy. We have plenty of mushroom growers in our county. We have plenty of horticulture as well, so it is an embarrassment to me as a Deputy that this has not been sorted, but we will not let the bit go. As I said, we will sit down as a committee and see how we can try and move it forward. I think it was Deputy Fitzmaurice who said that we not going to make false promises, but we will do our best.

I call Deputy Fitzmaurice.