Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like other Members, the Minister of State will have heard the valid concerns about livelihoods in the sector because it is being targeted. The workers themselves are saying that the Ministers of State, Deputy Hackett and Deputy Noonan, have a fixed position on the issue of bogs and will do nothing more for the workers affected, and they say the just transition does not reach them. They are not being supported and they feel they have been abandoned. As a result, there are businesses in my constituency that are now sourcing horticultural peat from Scotland, Estonia and elsewhere. For a sector that accounts for a minuscule amount of all the peat harvested here, how can the Minister of State say, given the emissions involved in continuously importing an inferior product from abroad, that this is the more environmentally friendly way of moving forward? We know the suggested alternatives are produced in ways that fall below our environmental standards. Even Teagasc has said the only current alternative to get horticultural peat is to import it and that any other alternative is at least ten years away. In fact, there is no guarantee there will be suitable alternatives.

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