Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming in. This is a very important debate. The Minister of State brought great clarity on his role and the planning process. It was important he clarified that he understood the issue, supports peat extraction and the horticultural sector and understands the threat the current situation poses to a sector worth close to €500 million to us. It employs more than 17,000 people. There is no ban on peat extraction but, clearly, a dysfunctional system is in place and it is threatening the horticultural industry. At a time when we are all keen to do all we can not just to promote but to progress climate action, it is a low point for us to be talking about the State undermining one of the more sustainable parts of our agricultural sector. The Minister of State and other speakers have alluded to the farcical situation of us importing peat from eastern Europe, which travels thousands of miles in hundreds of trucks using fossil fuels, to a bog. It is reminiscent of something one would come up with in "Ballymagash". One one would struggle to come up with that scenario. If one was told that by somebody, one would say the person was joking.

Other Fianna Fáil speakers will speak to this issue, as it is does not directly affect people living in the constituency in which I live, Dublin Central, except that when we go to buy our mushrooms, tomatoes or whatever it is, we want to buy Irish and buy fruit and vegetables which have travelled less and have a lower carbon footprint. While the Minister of State does not have full and sole responsibility for this, I urge him to bring together the Ministers for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and for the Environment, Climate and Communications and put their heads together. This is a case in which there is a requirement for an emergency intervention, that is, some form of emergency short-term licensing that will allow the horticultural sector to survive and our producers to continue to produce for us at home and for wider consumption. We need someone to take this by the scruff of the neck and add a bit of common sense into what is not working and is a dysfunctional system and to ensure there is a just transition that serves the horticultural sector and all of our economic and environmental objectives.