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Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Jackie Cahill: .... Before we begin, I remind members, witnesses and those in the Public Gallery to switch off their mobile phones. The purpose of today's meeting is to undertake an examination of the impact of peat shortages on the horticulture industry and, in the second session, to discuss the environmental impact of local emissions. In the first session, the committee will hear from Mr. Seamus Boland...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

...supplied turf during the Second World War to places like Athlone and Roscommon, for example. I am steeped in this situation. We were given this task to assess the levels of suitability of current peat stocks across all peat suppliers in Ireland. The assessment was to include all available peat stocks; their level of suitability for different horticultural uses; to determine whether any...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Michael Fitzmaurice: I welcome Mr. Boland. It has been a good while since we crossed paths on the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, IPCC. Mr. Boland has said that some of the bog owners did not co-operate. It needs to be put on the record that, in fairness to the industry, it sent emails to each of us and it would contradict that. Growing Media Ireland has said it has engaged and some smaller operators...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

...work. The reason we could not put forward the recommendation the Deputy mentioned relates to discussions we had with scientists and especially hydrologists. I remind the Deputy that the Harte Peat decision needs to be looked at and clarified. It may even need to be tested but at the moment it is there. We were told that a buffer zone can be put in place, as the Deputy suggests - I am...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Michael Fitzmaurice: ...that within a buffer zone, you are not damaging the whole integrity of a site. That is copying the habitats directive on not having an adverse effect on a site . The area is always degraded where peat was milled before, to put it simply. Generally these areas are bigger than 30 ha at the moment, so the buffer zone will already be there no matter what is done. A Minister must make a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Joe Flaherty: I thank Mr. Boland for coming before the committee and for providing a very good report. Anything that can break the impasse we have in the peat sector at the moment must be commended and welcomed. I will hone in on recommendation 1 and the exemption clarification. It states the aim of the recommendation is to restore confidence in the current procedures and to give the necessary support...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Mr. Seamus Boland: I thank Deputy Flaherty for the kind words. What we have to understand is that peat required for normal horticulture, rather than mushrooms, should be more easily found and more easily available. I believe it is. However, as I said and as the Deputy picked up, I am afraid the problem is the mistrust or lack of confidence in the planning industry. Unfortunately, many...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Martin Browne: ...places are really struggling. The only recommendation that even provides a glimmer of hope is the question on the current condition of bogs suggesting that rewetting be paused. The suitability of peat from the quarry bog is also questioned. Mr. Padraig O'Leary from Walsh Mushrooms from my county - the Chairman will know it - said that he still does not see that as a short-term solution....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Mr. Seamus Boland: I am afraid I missed some of it but let me clarify what Deputy Browne asked. He spoke about the Rochfortbridge peat. I missed the bit about his colleague. I am sorry about that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Martin Browne: I was talking about Mr. O'Leary from Walsh Mushrooms in Golden in Tipperary, where myself and the Chairman are from. He said he does not see a short-term solution in sight. He said diluting peat is driving up costs by 40% to 50%. He also suggested that as you narrow the providers of peat, the prices are going to increase. Does Mr. Boland have any opinion on that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Mr. Seamus Boland: Sometimes I can confuse myself, but I am not sure I was saying that we dilute the peat. There are two kinds of peat. There is mined peat and there is milled peat. The mined peat, if you look at the Rochfortbridge site, is mixed through sand and gravel. Deputy Fitzmaurice pointed that out. It is extraordinary that we are digging this up. If we had the expert...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

..., let us be clear about the stakeholders and we met the stakeholders also. Let us also be clear I have huge regard for them because they are in a difficult situation and as I said certainly the peat stock owners do not have the same belief in the planning system. The simple reality is that we have never said there are none available. There were simply none available to be put forward...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Martin Browne: The report also recommends a number of options to secure supply of horticultural peat. However there was no considered role for the private sector in the supply of horticultural peat. Given the past experience these people have had and the companies operating in Ireland, why does the report more or less ignore that sector and does that not undermine the report itself when such a large-scale...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Paul Daly: ...to be carried out. Does Mr. Boland know if anybody is taking on the mantle in that regard? Is anyone even looking into it because it is a startling figure in his presentation that there is enough peat in that pile to do what the mushroom industry would be using for 22 years? It is a lot shorter draw to the four corners of Ireland from Derryarkin and Rochfortbridge than it is from...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

...will trump up behind us and tell us to forget it and that it is not possible. The reason we mentioned it as an example was, as Deputy Fitzmaurice also pointed out, they are already digging up the peat and they are already in there. Huge amounts of bog are being lifted in order to get to sand and gravel. As I said earlier, if we had thought about this correctly, we could have created a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Regina Doherty: .... It did a real disservice to the work of the witness and to the industry. The industry is in crisis and we are trying to find solutions. People I have engaged with tell me that the quality of the peat at Rochfortbridge is not good enough to be either classified as mined or milled. Therefore, it does not necessarily come to us as a recommendation. As the witness suggested, this was...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

...had the ideal sites but when I investigated I realised that there was a serious amount of planning to be done in order to make them available. Some of it has nothing to do with the quality of the peat. It has to do with the access, the legal ownership and the other things that can come into play before you even start. This is why we recommended the planning system. I am very pleased...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

.... I thank Deputy Carthy for his kind words. When I was approached the only thing that attracted me is that I really do care about jobs in rural areas. We have seen too many of them being lost. Peat harvesting, which we have pulled out of, is a huge activity in the place I live in the midlands. I am very sad about that. I was really persuaded when the Department asked me to look at it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

Matt Carthy: No, I am just trying to get a sense of that. I see the report scope, as mentioned in the presentation, was: To independently undertake an assessment on the levels and sustainability of current peat stocks across all peat suppliers in Ireland. This assessment is to include available peat stocks, their level of suitability for different horticultural uses, to determine whether or not hobby...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Impact of Peat Shortages on the Horticulture Industry: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Nov 2022)

...No, that was it. The first question the Department wanted us to figure out was if we could find a site anywhere of 30 ha or something similar. It was then to assess where we could find available peat stocks. There was even a belief that there may be peat stocks dug and just lying there, which may be suitable for the horticultural industry itself, rather than mushrooms because that is a...