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Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Jackie Cahill: ...from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage a couple of months ago at which we were assured that the working group report would be available in mid-April and would allow for peat extraction for the horticulture and nursery industries. I hope some progress will be made on that on foot of today's meeting. An Taisce's report states that we still have not developed an...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Matt Carthy: For the record, Mr. Lumley commented on his perception that nobody who has questioned the logic of importing horticultural peat has raised objections in the past to the export of horticultural peat from Ireland. That is not, in fact, the case. I am on the record of both this committee and in the House as questioning the logic of exporting large amounts of Irish horticultural peat at a time...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Matt Carthy: ...committee is agreed that we should protect our waterways and go to significant lengths in order to do so. Many in the beef sector will have been concerned by what happened with the horticultural peat sector. From Mr. Lumley's stated position, is it the case that An Taisce thinks it is okay to import horticultural peat in order to facilitate the likes of the mushroom sector and others?...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Will the witnesses answer the question Deputy Carthy asked earlier? We are now bringing in peat for the mushroom industry from another country. We are bringing in peat briquettes. Do they agree with that or do they believe the mushroom industry should be wiped out? Which is it? One cannot have both sides of this.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Matt Carthy: I want to bring our guests back to the original question. What is the solution, in the here and now, for the mushroom sector, for example? As I see it, if we cannot extract horticultural peat in Ireland, the two options that are available to us are to import peat or export the mushroom sector. Which one of these options should we choose?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

...of people with gardens, both in urban and rural areas, and balconies, where there is also potential to grow more food crops. That is a major initiative we will promote in the summer. The peat issue is hugely complex. I am one of the non-governmental organisation representatives on the working group on this matter that was set up by the Department with the industry. We have had four...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

...grassland management of hedgerows or forestry. The people advancing that argument are not talking about the carbon loss that is happening through land burning, soil erosion or the drainage of high peaty soil land. People think of bogs in terms of peatland but 20% of the land area beyond that has peaty soils. I do not want to bamboozle the members with statistics but a good statistic is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

...with Teagasc. We have written to it but received no response. In 2019, we published the letters but we have not had engagement. On misdirected investment, the example given is investing in peat-burning power stations when we already knew what was needed to be done with the peat because we speak about sequestration and the biggest carbon storage in the soil in Ireland by a large margin...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: ...Talt and it had to go through the imperative reasons of overriding public interest, IROPI, process with 9,000 people being two years on a boil-water notice. It objects to forestry, objects to the peat harvesting, objects to turf cutting but the witnesses would not give an answer to Deputy Carthy earlier on whether they would rather see the mushroom industry collapse or keep getting the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Mr. Ruaidhrí O'Boyle: Civil society has pointed out for years, or decades, that we cannot continue to mine peat out of the ground for whatever purpose. We are now talking about carbon sequestration in terms of agriculture and yet we are still not talking about the single biggest carbon storage in the country, which is our peatlands. Until we start protecting and restoring our peatland,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Mr. Ian Lumley: Ten years ago, the EPA published an important report, Bogland, on the need to ensure that the continued loss of biodiversity and carbon from the peatlands through power generation, domestic burning and horticulture needed an exit strategy. Bord na Móna adopted one for 2030 that was subject to legal actions. Now Bord na Móna has adopted a more immediate exit...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

..., and equally a just transition. We have already seen how the just transition action support has been advanced in the Bord na Móna case. Bord na Móna was initially proposing to drag out peat cutting until 2030. That was subject to major criticism from all the coalition organisations in Ireland and it would also have subjected Ireland to much international reputational damage....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Brian Leddin: ...to the consultation process on the climate action plan which is open until 18 May. It is not a discussion, more generally, about quarries, sewage treatment plants and importing horticultural peat from Germany. None of these is relevant to our submission on the climate action plan. That is what we should focus our efforts on. I thank the guests from An Taisce for sending in that quite...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

...an oil spillage in a quarry contaminated the water supply in the Strokestown area. This is what happens when a quarry is not managed or regulated properly or is not properly compliant. The peat issue is self-inflicted because we have failed to put the research into alternatives.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Martin Browne: ...how Teagasc's climate mitigation projections could be credible in light of the evident failure, since 2012, of measures to offset the output of growth. The witnesses also stated that they have repeatedly attempted to engage with the State agency on a scientific basis without substantive reply. What is the working relationship between the two organisations? There is a difference between...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

...and Monaghan that was bequeathed to us last year. There was a write-up of this in the Irish Farmers' Journalthis week in the context of using extensive grazing to control fire-risk vegetation in a peatland area. We would like to move away from the polarisation which has been happening over many years whereby the farming-processing sectors, beef, dairy or other areas of agriculture, have,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Climate Action Plan and its Implications for the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (4 May 2021)

Victor Boyhan: I welcome the witnesses from An Taisce. Many of us have diverging views but I respect that our guests have come to robustly make their case. I will not repeat the comments of others but we all agree we must move towards a just transition for our farmers. We also need to achieve strong legal compliance and climate mitigation. That is not really at issue. Just transition comes with...