Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Horticultural Peat (Temporary Measures) Bill is an attempt to find a just solution to provide for a just transition. I wish to put on the record of the House that drafting this Bill for the 35 members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was a last resort to solving this problem, which, I believe, has been kicked down the road for far too long. What is in this Bill is a workable solution for an industry in crisis. The horticultural sector is facing an enormous crisis caused by a shortage of supply. By no choice of their own, those in the sector have been forced to import a degraded quality of peat at a much higher price, which, ultimately, will put some of them out of business. Some 17,000 livelihoods depend on this industry. Hundreds of thousands of households depend on the produce created and grown by the industry. The growers and nurseries up and down the country need a solution or else they will simply go out of business and thousands of jobs will be lost.

This Bill was described the other day by colleagues as giving false hope to growers. It was described as disingenuous. Using horticultural growers as collateral damage while taking an opportunity to have a go at big industry is disingenuous. That will offer little or no hope. The horticultural industry does not have time for political games; it needs solutions. It needed them months ago. We are introducing this Bill in an attempt to give the Government, which has now been in situfor almost 18 months, an opportunity to do what should have been done two or three years ago by the previous Government. This Government has an opportunity to do what is right for the horticultural industry and to recognise that it needs a medium in which to grow its products.It needs that medium to come from Ireland. We need a derogation and a just transition but, more importantly, what we need is to put our money where our mouth is to resource the replacement for peat that is needed. Assigning a young PhD student to that project certainly does not show serious intent.

As politicians we need to supply people with solutions. Sitting on the working group report, as has happened for the last couple of months, is not sustainable. For this reason, I genuinely welcome the commitment given to the House yesterday that the Minister will bring to Cabinet next Tuesday the working group report and its recommendations, as well as the resolutions provided by the nine Ministers from all parties in this coalition Government, which relate to the three Departments responsible for fixing this problem. We are adjourning the debate after 90 minutes as otherwise we would otherwise have to put the legislation to a vote. The outcome could have been very different today with regard to the 35 Government Senators who brought this issue to a head because we did not feel it was being dealt with.

I will address what is in the programme for Government with regard to horticulture. We agreed in the joint programme for Government that we would review the supports available to the horticultural sector, grow and expand the businesses in this sector supplying our domestic and international markets, invest in the promotion of Irish horticultural products and enhance the capital investment available to horticulture producers. What I want to know is what it is that is giving false hope to this industry. Is it the lack of action by the Government over the past 18 months on the commitments in the programme for Government? This Bill genuinely seeks to find a solution for an industry in crisis, one on which 17,000 livelihoods depend.

Since the introduction of this Bill last Tuesday, the people who are against it have sought to make it something completely other than what it is. It is not about exporting peat, nor is it about using peat for anything other than horticultural practices. The main argument, which is made without explanation and which the Government is apparently making today also, is that the Bill contravenes EU legislation. I hope the Minister of State will be able to give us an explanation. EU law requires assessment before consent to be given for certain projects involving peat extraction for horticulture under both the environment impact assessment directive and the habitats directive. European law is not, as some people suggested over the weekend, prescriptive about whether the necessary assessment is completed under the Planning and Development Act or the Licensing Act. In 2019 the State considered licensing more appropriate. The Planning and Development Act, the statutory instrument setting out the executive development regulations and the European Union statutory instrument were introduced by the then Minister. We are all well aware that those statutory instruments have been overturned by the High Court and the Supreme Court on the basis that they are not suitable instruments for doing what we want to do in Ireland, namely, have a just transition for the people who produce our food. European law, which has been stood up by the Supreme Court, prescribes that we must do what was attempted in the two statutory instruments in primary legislation. That primary legislation is this Bill. Unless really viable information is brought to us by the Government on behalf of the Attorney General as to why this Bill contravenes EU law, I will find it very difficult to see it as anything other than another obstruction to finding a solution for this problem.

Over the weekend, our arguments were conflated with the issue of exports, and peat has left this country in the past nine or ten months. This is not about exports for reasons other than horticulture. There is no escaping the fact that we started importing for horticulture in September of this year. Unless we do something to produce Irish peat for Irish producers, we will have to continue importing peat from Sri Lanka, Latvia and wherever else we can get our hands on it. Having large shipments with hundreds of trucks bringing these products to different places in the country is not sustainable.

Despite the argument that seems to have been created over the past week, this is not about fuel or exporting. It is about taking a very small amount of the peat that could be produced in this country to provide for an Irish market that produces food for Irish consumers.The fact that we have ignored this issue, or not found a resolution to it since the SIs were overturned in 2019, which is effectively nearly three years ago, tells us that the Government and, probably, the previous Government did not see this as the crisis that the 17,000 workers who rely on their income week in and week out off the back of this industry tell us that it is.

I am happy to pull in my horns today. It is a pity that we on the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil benches had to show our horns in the first instance to try to get this issue resolved. We are happy to stall the Bill today on the basis that the Government will commit to doing what it said yesterday it would do, that is, bring the working group report to Cabinet next week, publish it and, more important, publish the recommendations and make available the resources that will fix this supply issue and fix it in the very short term. Otherwise, we will find ourselves back here in a short number of weeks having a vote on this Bill that might not end in a way that will keep us all happy.

The people that I want to keep happy are the people who elect all of us to this House and the other House. For a long time, we have forgotten that we are supposed to be on the side of the people we represent. These people need us to provide a solution for them so they can continue to provide product for the Irish market. I hope that the Minister of State, in his response with regard to the plans for the next couple of weeks, will also provide a just solution and Irish peat for Irish producers so that they an continue to provide us with the best quality food, as they have been doing for generations.