Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Senator Pippa Hackett):

I thank the Deputy. I cannot speak to Bord na Móna decisions. It is a semi-State commercial company and is entitled to make its own arrangements and agreements. The Deputy asked about the planning expert who has been appointed for the short-term actions to address the peat supply. We have recruited Seamus Boland from Irish Rural Link to work with the peat suppliers to ascertain the level of horticultural peat stocks available to growers. For the medium term, we have recruited planning experts, Des Johnson and Padraig Thornton, to provide focused regulatory guidance to those wishing to achieve regulatory compliance for extraction on those sub-30 ha bogs. We have seen a number of judicial cases. Extraction has to be done in compliance with the laws of this land and Europe. Bord na Móna never supplied the mushroom sector and I do not see it doing so now.

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