Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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It is important that agriculture and environment are around the same table and the more we see that, the better it will be for everybody. Nobody achieves anything by being at loggerheads.

I do have to say, though, that it is deeply regrettable that a representative of the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations-General Confederation of Agricultural Cooperatives, COPA-COGECA, came before the agriculture committee and gave misinformation to that committee, and had to issue a public statement retracting what he said. The quote at the time was, "My intention was to inform and to build understanding... and in truth I have done the opposite." That was carried by lots of the agricultural publications and frightened the bejaysus out of a lot of farmers by what was said in the agriculture committee. I think there is a responsibility on all of us, when we are talking, that we are putting facts into the domain and that we are having those reasonable conversations. Trust has come up so much during the conversation here, and I think trust is really vital. That is why we all need to be honest and transparent about the information we are putting into the public domain.

On the issue of trust, I want to ask Dr. McGoff and Mr. Kelly, on foot of their opening statements, about the mandate for Coillte and Bord na Móna. I am particularly interested in Bord na Móna and the Derryadd mid-Shannon wilderness programme. Again, it goes back to trust with a community and just transition. When Bord na Móna was ending the peat extraction on that site, it gave a commitment to the community that it was going to give the bog back to them. The community, the local authority and the senior planner all put together a plan for a wilderness park, which would be a win-win for everybody, for the community, for biodiversity, for a carbon sink. Yet now, we have Bord na Móna putting in one planning application for a wind farm on that site. It lost the judicial review, and now we hear it is going to do the same again. Would the changing of the mandate help with that?

By not doing that wilderness park, even Bord na Móna's plan for that site goes against Government policy and principle 16 of the national peatlands strategy, which states that cutaway bogs that flood naturally should be permitted to flood unless there is a clear environmental or economic case to maintain pumped drainage. I would not mind hearing the witnesses' views on that, and if they are aware of that particular project. I was down there at the weekend. It just seems like a no-brainer, that we would turn the pumps off and allow that site to go back to being a natural environment, and lead by example. If we are going to be rewetting land, it should be the likes of Bord na Móna and Coillte that are leading.