Mr. James Spillane:

Two plants have closed already. Costs are rising. The cost of importing is driving up the cost of the final product. The alternatives are more expensive than peat used to be. Consequently, we are going to have a problem with demand and, therefore, undoubtedly fewer plants will be required in the future.

Not only that, we are losing people daily. We are bleeding people from our industry all the time because we cannot harvest. Those people who used to do the work of harvesting in the bogs are no longer with us. They have moved to other industries, which is fine for now, but when the recession comes and they return to their communities, those jobs, which were there for them for decades, will be gone. That is the true cost of it in the community. The short answer is that we are undoubtedly on a journey out of this country.