Mr. Fergus Moore:

Yes, those forests are being replanted on peatlands. It depends on the type of description used because there are lots of different definitions of "peat". At the moment, we have a lot of legacy plantations on peatlands causing emissions. Coillte is looking at a land use strategy to look at rehabilitating some of those forests back to blanket bogs. There is active work ongoing regarding EU LIFE projects.

Regarding other areas of plantations on peat, we are replanting those but it is in the context of the overall land use strategy. As the Deputy will know, we are not adding to the legacy issues because our new forestry programme has basically taken out those areas that were planted in the past. We are managing our existing forest estate. Over 40% of our forests are on peatlands at the moment, so there is quite a significant amount of forests already there. It is important to try to manage those forests. A lot of them produce quality timber. They also help to use wood to decarbonise the built environment. One must consider the whole picture of forests in these areas. It is not very straightforward to say forests on peat are bad and need to be replaced.