Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. He has said that the committee is reviewing the significant positives and negatives but I will again mention an issue that has been mentioned by everybody else who has spoken here this afternoon. I refer to an issue that has featured in every local newspaper, including local papers in County Westmeath. I was shocked to learn, especially as someone who lives in the midlands, that just over three weeks ago this country, which is famed for the quality of its peat, imported 4,000 tonnes of horticultural peat from Latvia. It has been said that the 3,000 km journey had to be further supplemented by 200 trucks in order to bring the peat to the port in Latvia for its onward journey to Ireland. As also mentioned here, it is estimated that such a shipment will be needed every two weeks for up to a decade to meet the demand in this country. My colleagues also stated it has been reported that the area needed to service the Irish horticultural industry would be just over 10% of Ireland’s total area of peatlands but most importantly, these would be Irish peatlands.

The importation of peat has been described as madness and my colleagues have said it is like carrying coal to Newcastle and selling sand to the Arabs. The Minister of State can mention whatever he likes but the current situation in Ireland is unbelievable and is simply carrying peat to Paddy. I accept the argument that has been made that Ireland was a net contributor in the past.

Earlier the Minister of State, in his introductory statement, said "I have no issue with supporting the exemption of peat extraction from the planning process". That leads me to ask who has a problem with such an exemption. The Government is a tripartite organisation, for want of a better description, at present. One of my colleagues across the way suggested that we should have three Ministers here for this debate. I think we should, because the Minister of State has come in here and said that he has no problem yet there is a problem because we are importing peat from Latvia.