Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

All right, so it is not just this committee some Ministers are refusing to meet. Mr. Neenan said the Government has been inactive on this issue since January. We have put in a number of questions to the Minister in previous months and we have been repeatedly told about this €1.6 million in funding for the Beyond Peat project and developing alternatives. From talking to the industry there are no alternatives there or we are way behind. I have been told how an independent expert has been working with all the suppliers to ascertain the level or horticultural peat stocks available to the growers. I have also been told how shelf and house trials on peat alternatives in the mushroom sector are making what the Minister referred to as good progress. Will the organisations give the committee their experiences of these initiatives and their usefulness, as they see it?