Mr. Kevin Mahon:

Yes. If we get substitute consent, then we can apply for planning permission. As it happens, half of our bog beside our factory is in Longford and half of it is in Westmeath. This means two planning applications will be required. One county council could grant permission and the other could refuse it. Part of our bog, therefore, could become inaccessible if we have to travel through one county to get to the other side of the bog.

If we get granted planning permission, which could be a two-year process, it will only be then that we can apply to the EPA for a licence. In 2019, Mr. Spillane and myself went to the DG Environment in Brussels to highlight the absurdity of the situation that we are caught in here. We were pointed straight back to Dublin and told this was not an EU stricture. There is a myth here that it is the EU that has done this. Both our companies have permissions to harvest peat in EU and non-EU countries, in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. It is only in Ireland that we have this uniquely absurd problem, that no one wants to sort out because it suits. This is death by stealth. This is what is happening here. The Deputy called it. It is the inaction that will collapse the industry and this is by design, because this triumvirate in government has made a pact and the price of it is the industry.