Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I accept what both Deputies are saying and that this is tiny portion compared to what we have extracted over the decades for energy production and so forth. Those are the questions the working group has been charged with and I am hoping to get some answers from it on this. As I said, the group reports to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, but certainly it is directly affecting the horticulture sector. It is untrue in a sense to say there are no alternatives because there are, although they are not available at the scale required for the commercial horticulture sector. However, there are, for example, some commercial organic growers who are peat free, so there is scope. There is work and research being done on this but, again, it is about implementing measures over the next number of years to help our sector transition out of peat. Peat extraction must stop but horticulture must continue and that is what I will endeavour to support people in.

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