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Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

Matt Carthy: ...who was appointed. Is the Minister of State aware that Bord na Móna has entered into a contract with an Israeli company and given it exclusive rights to the 2,000 tonnes of high grade horticultural peat in its remit? Bord na Móna is a State-owned company. It has unilaterally taken that move despite the Minister of State having a working paper that indicates an independent...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

...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...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

Matt Carthy: ...second action in the working paper specifies this independent expert will be working with Bord na Móna, but it already did a deal with an Israeli company before the independent expert was in contact. Any peat extraction must be done legally. Does the Minister of State accept we need to find a legal mechanism by which peat can be extracted for our domestic sector in Ireland so that...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

...That is why we have appointed the two planning experts to help the Departments and stakeholders to achieve that, if possible. We have no guarantees about what is possible. We have always imported peat. I agree we import more than we should. We are a net exporter of peat and have been for a long time.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Senator Pippa Hackett): Well Bord na Móna was. But we are still continuing to export peat. It is fair to say that probably most of that peat, if not all of it, is being extracted illegally, which is a massive concern for our climate action ambitions. We have to move the sector on. I am totally committed to the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Senator Pippa Hackett): We have. An expert has been appointed to work with supplies of peat in the short term.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

Matt Carthy: 116. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the progress that has been made to implement the short and medium-term actions of the working paper to address challenges related to peat supply in the horticulture sector. [16813/22]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

Matt Carthy: The Minister of State will know there are some horticultural sectors, and I am thinking of the mushroom industry in particular, that need peat to survive. I hope an alternative to peat can be found and I would urge that efforts be intensified in that regard. For years we had the scandalous situation in this State of hundreds and thousands of units of peat being extracted from Irish land and...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Horticulture Sector (31 Mar 2022)

...and Communications and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, published a working paper that set out a series of actions to support the horticultural growers who are dependent on peat as a growing medium. Progress has been made on the implementation of the actions in that working paper. A guidance document on the regulatory framework for peat extraction was published...