Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 5 October 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
EU Nature Restoration Target: COPA-COGECA
Mr. Niall Curley:
That is exactly it. Only 20% of the target for agricultural peatland can be covered by something other than agricultural area. That means forestry or peatland forestry or peat extraction. Only 20% of the target can come from Bord na Móna peat extraction areas, so the majority of the target must be met by agricultural peatland farms. As Deputy Fitzmaurice stated, it is people who drained their land 50 or 60 years ago, or even more recently, who will be most affected by this.