Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Seamus Boland:

No, that was it. The first question the Department wanted us to figure out was if we could find a site anywhere of 30 ha or something similar. It was then to assess where we could find available peat stocks. There was even a belief that there may be peat stocks dug and just lying there, which may be suitable for the horticultural industry itself, rather than mushrooms because that is a specific requirement. The terms of reference were quite tight in that sense. If we were to do a much broader study on that, it would have had to have been properly tendered for, because this was done on a very low budget.