Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I suppose the only upside if all our meetings is that it is very informative and educational to hear Deputy Fitzmaurice speak about bogs. I could come back and listen to him any day talking about bogs. On a more serious note, I must say that, as a member of a Government party, I am deeply embarrassed that the witnesses are back again. I am also disappointed that there is no representative from the Green Party at the meeting. Unquestionably, the horticulture sector has been failed by various Government agencies and the three Departments. It is up for debate which of the Departments is ultimately responsible, but we will lay the blame on all three of them for the moment. I think the key point to take away from what the witnesses have told us is that we have now become reliant on an imported peat that is clearly of inferior quality. This committee has heard many times about the heavy price we are paying now for ash dieback as a result of an import. There is nothing to say that we are not going to have a similar consequence with inferior peat imports. I am very familiar with the Klassmann-Deilmann operation. It is a fantastic business and employer on the Longford-Westmeath border. Equally, I am familiar with many of Mr. Neenan's groups. Many of them are family businesses that are ready, willing and able to operate under the 30 ha, but an increasing number of them are being dragged to the courts by the EPA. They are court cases that the EPA probably knows in its heart and soul are only being taken to tick a box, and probably ultimately, will never come to pass. The EPA is putting those families through unnecessary expense, purely because of expedience and because somebody with an alternative agenda decides that this needs to be done.

We have referenced the various Departments that should have ultimate responsibility for this, and heretofore have failed the sector over the past two years. It is disappointing for me, as a Government Deputy, that the Department refused to attend the meeting today. Deputy Carthy has already proposed that we bring the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in here. As a relatively new Deputy, it is disappointing to see that officials can refuse to come before a committee. I would have thought the committee serves an important role in the ecology of legislation and everything else. I take it as a deep disrespect to the committee that it has happened. Also, Departments need to realise that we have a very important role in the ecology of legislation in that a great deal of legislation cannot pass through the two Houses until it comes before this committee first. I support Deputy Carthy 's proposal that we invite representatives of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to come before committee. It behoves us to put forward a proposal that we invite representatives from the three Departments to come before us. In the great tradition of any parish committee, we should write them a strongly-worded letter. We need to let them know that this is a serious issue.

We have heard very heartfelt testimony from everybody here, particularly Mr. Mahon and Mr. O'Rourke, on just how dire the situation is for the sector at the moment. We have to send a very strong message to those Departments. I commend the Chair on the lead he has taken on this since he has come into his role. He has been forthright in this area, and also in forestry. In both instances, we have been failed by the Departments. We need to ask the officials of the Departments and the three Ministers to come before us as soon as possible. We have a date for two free, and we need to ask the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to join them and come with them. It is unquestionable that we cannot let this go on without giving the sector a solution. I know there are Department mandarins listening into this. They will see, know and feedback just how serious an issue it is. There are few anoraks out there who are listening to this as well.

There is a divide out there, which I think Deputy Fitzmaurice summed up well. The media do not buy into this. They see bogs as a wonderful idyllic landscape and think they are beautiful and should be protected. We need to put what the sector is looking for very succinctly. It is not looking to pillage bogs and to destroy the countryside. I know there is a huge importation of peat coming in from abroad to my part of the country in the next couple of weeks. It is going to take 200 trucks to transport that down the country. Only in the last few weeks Longford County Council has taken the decision to put a weight restriction on a local road to stop Bord na Móna from moving its trucks and peat that it is bringing up to the briquette factory. If a local authority is able to move that quickly to do something, it surely beholds the Departments to come in here and work with an industry which, let us face it, is on its knees and is facing a crisis that ultimately could sound the death knell for thousands of jobs and millions of euro of income for this country. It has been said on a number of occasions that the sub-30 ha is the immediate and obvious solution to get us out of this logjam. It does not require an awful lot of creative thinking. We have already had three reports. We do not need many more reports about this.

I have one question for Mr. Neenan on the 30 ha. We have had this conversation, but I presume that Mr. Neenan would be of the view that if we did allow the sub-30 ha to operate, we would have sufficient peat to fulfil the industry requirements, and that would not require the opening of new bogs? That solution in itself would require around 15,000 ha of bog, which is less than 0.1% of the peatland of this country. For the anoraks and the Department boffins that are listening, we are not talking about peatlands right across Ireland; we are talking about 0.1% of peatland. Is that correct?