Mr. Fintan Kelly:

I take that point but the science is clear that we need to deliver rewetting across all types of peatlands and organic soils. That includes forestry, industrial peat extraction, domestic peat extraction and farmland. My point on the nature restoration law is that, if the EU has lower targets than what the science is telling us we need at a national level, that weakens our hand in terms of trying to leverage EU support for those necessary actions. That is why we feel we need to lobby for a stronger nature restoration law. Currently, the nature restoration law does not have any mandatory targets for industrial extraction sites or afforested peatlands. That ties in with what the Government should be doing immediately. It is clear that we need urgent action on agricultural soils but to get it right there would need to be engagement and schemes that are designed appropriately. That will inevitably result in delays. The most urgent action the Government can take is to reform the legal mandates of Coillte and Bord na Móna to ensure their purely economic mandates are reformed to include tackling biodiversity loss and climate change.

They should immediately start to rewet the 16% of publicly forested lands on peatlands. Currently, Coillte has no mandatory targets for forest-to-bog restoration. That needs to be addressed.