Mr. Seamus Boland:

Sometimes I can confuse myself, but I am not sure I was saying that we dilute the peat. There are two kinds of peat. There is mined peat and there is milled peat. The mined peat, if you look at the Rochfortbridge site, is mixed through sand and gravel. Deputy Fitzmaurice pointed that out. It is extraordinary that we are digging this up. If we had the expert contractors in place, you could draw it away and use it immediately. You would not need to do anything with it. You just draw it away and use it in the industry. That was certainly not diluting peat. I do not think we said that, nor would we be diluting normal milled peat. You would just be digging what you can in as safe an environment as possible under planning regulations and using it.

Turning to the price, the Deputy is certainly in the right place, but there is a way of looking at it. The price will be increased because of its unique nature, but buying it in from Moldova or places like that is even more crazy and a lot more costly. It is a reality that we have to face, and both the horticultural and mushroom industry were sanguine and very clear about understanding that they need this as a short-term solution. I hope I have gotten the Deputy's question right. If not, I apologise but certainly we would not see diluting the peat as a solution.

On the question of short-term solutions, I think if we knew all this was happening and the mushroom industry was in trouble it would have been a good idea if somebody had gone to Cement Roadstone Holdings, CRH, and asked permission to redo the way it was digging up the peat. They could ask for the specialist contractors to go in and take it away, save CRH a fortune, and draw it up to the mushroom farms. That would have been a brilliant solution.

It is similar for others. I am hoping I have not confused Deputy Martin Browne as well with my answer.