Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank Professor FitzGerald for his presentation. Speaking as someone from Offaly in the midlands, where a third of our county is peat soil and has been used for harvesting turf for electricity generation for decades, the future of the peatlands is at the forefront of my mind. A certain amount of the boglands is being rehabilitated and restored by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Bord na Móna has completed harvesting except on some bogs. Given that its main client no longer requires as much peat as was intended, though, a serious issue arises in that regard. Private operators are harvesting peat for horticultural use and exports to the UK and so on. Has the Climate Change Advisory Council had an opportunity to consider how all of that will be managed in terms of the rehabilitation and restoration that are required? If the boglands are not being used for harvesting as they were in the past, how much carbon can be saved? I believe that the average figure for carbon sequestered by peatlands throughout the country is 57,400 tonnes per year, which is significant. Has the council had time to go into that in detail?

Has the council had a chance to consider the implications for Bord na Móna and the ESB of the recent An Bord Pleanála decision concerning the west Offaly power station at Shannonbridge? The station's application to co-fire peat and biomass to 2027 has been refused. We all agree that there should be a just transition, but it needs an agreed timeline and, all of a sudden, the transition has been fast-forwarded to 2020, if not the end of 2019 when the PSO runs out. The implications for the workers in the area are very severe. I would like Professor FitzGerald's view on this matter.