Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We had an interesting presentation from Bord na Móna recently in the Joint Committee on Climate Action. The clear consensus among the scientific and climate action community is that the restoration of bogs is one of the biggest potentials for us with regard to storing carbon and has co-benefits in protecting wildlife and so on. Bord na Móna made the case that it is only responsible for 80,000 ha and the large volume of private bogs also had this potential to provide a real return to the State. I welcome the details set out of The Living Bog scheme. As much as those 12 projects are welcome, the scale of opportunity we have here to restore habitats and store carbon must receive many multiples of the €1.352 million allocated. The Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform acknowledged in our committee yesterday that there needs to be a radical increase in the ambition and level of activity by the State in the area of storing carbon. Could the Minister use that to get her Department to see an increase of a multiple of the funding currently available for local, private landowners outside Bord na Móna to ramp up our activity in this regard given the critical loss of habitat, the critical state of our natural habitats and the urgency to restore bogs to store carbon. Is the Minister looking at ramping up that level of activity to learn the lessons from the pilot schemes that are in place?

See this speech in context