Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Herein lies part of the difficulty. As I mentioned, we already have had interactions with the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Minister of State, Senator Hackett. The reason I submitted this as a priority question was to appeal to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, as the lead Minister in his Department to recognise that the issue is putting farms at risk. As the Minister of State recognises, mushroom farming makes up a substantial part of the economy in County Monaghan, as in many other counties.

County Monaghan, in particular, is a good test case. The farmers who changed to farming mushrooms did so because they were encouraged to do so. They had smaller holdings that were unprofitable and the farmers diversified. They did exactly what they were asked to do. They moved into an area and turned small, unprofitable holdings into an economic driver for the entire region. Now they are at crisis point. They are at crisis point because of tokenism and inaction across three Departments. Those farmers deserve to know what will be done to ensure that peat can be extracted this year.

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