Ms Anna Kavanagh:

The Senator covered a lot of topics there. I hope I get to all of them. Peat is the best growing medium and that is why we have been using it for decades. Irish peat is the best in the world. We have seen that over the decades because people have wanted it. It is medium-decomposed peat and has the best air and water properties. It has a high lignin content so it is very useful for long-term crops. The other thing about peat is that it is a relatively light material with a low pH and low nutrient. The beauty of that is lime and fertilisers can be added to suit any crop. The other thing is peat is not just one product. Peat is brought in, graded and then blended. Even in my days in Bord na Móna there could be up to 1,000 different recipes for growers in Ireland, so the number of recipes worldwide is much higher than that.

Peat will be needed in the phasing out of peat in favour of alternatives in Ireland. The Senator mentioned the alternatives and asked us to say a bit about green waste. Again, from my experience in Bord na Móna, we had a state-of-the-art facility in Kilberry and green waste was produced to a good quality. The important point is that a very good quality is needed for retail products and is even more important for professional products. I illustrate this by saying that if you go out and by a bag of compost and grow your plants, you probably will not mind if they are different sizes and if one dies you blame yourself before anyone else. On the professional side of the business, if I sent a load of compost to Mr. Dunne and he had variance in his plants and lost plants it is all off the bottom line as they are grown to tight specifications. Thus the need for quality on that side is critical. Green waste is also a very heavy material. It is about 500 g per litre. At the moment, green compost could only be used at about 10% to 15% in a mix because of the weight and everything else. It also has a high conductivity, which is the salts in there. There are concerns with green compost, depending on the source, about contamination by glass or plastic and it can even have needles in it. There is also a concern about whether pesticides have been used on the crops, grass cuttings, hedge cuttings or anything else that goes in there. There are a lot of issues really. On top of that human pathogens must also be considered.

Going forward and looking at alternatives we must take a more holistic approach where we look at the entire system of production of stuff. With, say, the green waste we can ask if there is anything else we can do to it to eliminate some of these issues. Bord na Móna has successfully used green compost in the hobby market for number of years now, going back to 2005, probably. Bord na Móna was the leader in peat reduction in the hobby market in the UK, so it is not as if Ireland has no experience in this area. However, on the professional side of the business it is an entirely different matter. There plant production is in a critical situation and things must be very closely monitored. To use green compost in professional mixes there would need to be a very high standard.

The Senator inquired about other products. Wood fibre is a good product and is seen worldwide as probably one of the leading products that can be used in peat reduction. Wood fibre can be used, although it has issues with possible nitrogen lock-up. It is a light material and has been used successfully up to approximately 35% in mixes. The big problem with wood fibre is the competition from fuel and other wood industries. It is difficult and the price can be sensitive. It may be possible to have schemes going forward - and this should form part of our research and development - where there would be incentives, subsidies or land put aside to grow crops specifically to produce growing media. That would be one option.

Coir is another product that has been mentioned but it comes predominantly from Sri Lanka. Coir is the outer husk of the coconut. We are talking about taking a product like that and transporting it all the way from Sri Lanka, India or somewhere around there. We are talking about taking it from a country where water resources are valuable, even for people's own use, and asking them to use that water to clean the coir, because it contains certain salts and so on, to give us a product for growing media.

It is also used locally in those countries as soil conditioner and as a fuel.

The Senator mentioned pearlite and vermiculite. Many other products are used as additives. There are other products such as anaerobic digestate and waste materials that should be looked at. Any alternative needs to be fit for purpose and sustainable. What criteria are we using to say that it is sustainable? I feel that we should find out what products are locally available in Ireland in sufficient quantities that we could use in future and rate those products on a scale. In the UK, there was a calculator which looked at energy use, water use, social compliance, renewability, habitat biodiversity and other criteria. It scores each material based on those criteria and comes up with a total score. Peat should also be on that because it will be needed for a long time yet.

Another issue that the Senator mentioned was mixtures. Mixtures can be used. It is unlikely that there will be one material that will be used in future. Peat has been a great product. It is foreseen that we will use mixtures of products. When you start research and development on mixtures of products, it is not a matter of adding A, B and C, and adding 1 and 1 to get 2, or 2 and 2 to get 4. When these products are added, their properties need to be categorised and assessed, then you have to look at how they are put together and assess that product all over again. It is not as simple as putting two products together then making it available. That is where much of the research and development work will happen. All of those combinations and their physical, chemical and microbial characteristics need to be assessed.

The Senator asked about the possibility of recycling peat. That has been done a bit in the past. It is a possibility. With the new technologies, those things are all possible. It is a good recommendation. To my knowledge, Bord na Móna has ceased supply of peat for horticulture at this point, so whatever is available is coming from other producers or from abroad. I agree with the Senator and I cannot believe that we would talk about importing peat. If we are really concerned about climate action, kicking the ball down the road is not the answer. If we are talking about global climate action, then buying peat from abroad is only adding to our environmental issues and it is not helping in any way. As I said earlier, that peat is not even of the same quality as the peat in our own country. It will decompose faster, which would contribute more to carbon dioxide emissions.

The Senator said that it is now July. I agree and have raised this several times in our working group. The main peat harvesting season is from May until September. We have missed May and June and we do not know what the weather will bring in the next couple of months. We need immediate action. The working group and its industry members have been patient. We have contributed and worked hard in six meetings over four months. There has been much behind the scenes work to contribute to those meetings. We need an answer for the industry at this stage. It is at crisis point, as the Senator pointed out.