Mr. Seamus Boland:

I thank Deputy Flaherty for the kind words.

What we have to understand is that peat required for normal horticulture, rather than mushrooms, should be more easily found and more easily available. I believe it is. However, as I said and as the Deputy picked up, I am afraid the problem is the mistrust or lack of confidence in the planning industry. Unfortunately, many of the potential suppliers do not want to engage in that because of the hassle they feel it causes them. There is no particular reason we would not increase the number of counties. That is a consideration and maybe you would get a greater buy-in. We said it too, simply because we wanted to try to allow the process to go a little quicker. If you bring in three or four more local authorities that involves the machinery of each of those authorities and people need to be in place. I know at the last sitting on this issue Deputy Fitzmaurice pointed out that planners and local authorities are under fire as it is. The barriers are that if there are more local authorities involved it will take longer to do.

What we wanted to do was basically supported by Cabinet. It was to pick one or two areas, guide the process and put the experts together, and give support to those who want to submit their properties for this planning exemption. They would not be losing sleep at night because they are worried about the costs, etc. We can at least try to simplify what is a very complex planning system. Two counties might make it happen quicker. There would still be the same expertise, but because you are not covering all four or five you do not have the same delay.

Deputy Flaherty was right to point out that we need to crack this nut very quickly, and I would argue that with support at Cabinet level this could happen.