Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Senator may not agree with it, but that is my view. Going back the Senator's first point, which is a good one, about the large-scale emissions from land use and what could we do quickly. I put it to the Senator that one of the more immediate issues is that there are still some 500,000 tonnes of peat exported annually with no planning permission, no regulation and no oversight. If we are looking at ways of storing and reducing environmental damage being done at scale, that might be one of the areas we should focus on first. With the forest programme and the felling licences, a lot of that forestry is perhaps in areas we should not have had it in the first place. We will have to manage that and this will include felling and use of the timber. The ongoing 500,000 tonnes of peat that is exported, which is completely unregulated and without any planning, is maybe where we should focus first.