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

I welcome the fact that the Minister is here to answer this question, because for far too long this has been fobbed off to a Minister of State. There has not been the serious intervention that is required at Cabinet level. This whole process has been marked by delays, as has been mentioned. The Government set up an expert working group to examine these issues. The length of time the working group took, as well as the length of time the Government then took to deliberate on its findings, was excessive in my view As Deputy Kenny has said, the Minister has ignored some of the central of findings of that working group. Essentially, we need to ensure we end the practice of exporting peat from Ireland. That was a scandal. It should never have been allowed to happen. However, it should be noted that the chief culprit in that was a State-owned company which exported with the approval of the Government. We also have to stop the scandal of the importation of peat coming from places where we have no say whatsoever about the environmental regulations overseeing that process. We can do that by allowing the limited extraction of peat, in order to service our domestic horticulture and mushroom sector in particular.

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