Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government has known for many years that the use of peat for horticulture must be phased out. It has known that this would require a transitional plan to ensure the horticulture industry had sufficient supplies of peat in the short term while sustainable alternatives were being identified and put in place in the medium to long term. Despite knowing this for years, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael failed to act, even though some members of those parties were in government.

Today, we have the bizarre situation of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of peat, including horticultural peat, being exported from the State, while the horticulture industry is left to import peat from elsewhere. In 2019, the Government introduced badly drafted regulations as a short-term measure to address a mess that it created. The regulations were challenged in the courts, rightly so, were found not to be in compliance with the State's environmental obligations and were struck down.

Since then, the Government has sat on its hands and done nothing. It has not engaged those who are exporting horticultural peat from the island, particularly State-owned Bord na Móna, to ensure that the horticulture industry had sufficient supplies from existing stockpiles. The Government has not pursued the issue of sustainable alternatives to horticultural peat in order to provide growers with a viable alternative. It has simply buried its head in the sand in the hope that the problem would simply go away. That is the context in which we have to see today's Bill. It is nothing short of a cynical piece of political theatre designed to give the impression that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are proposing a solution, when anyone who can read knows that this Bill is anything but that.

The Bill proposes a widespread and unlimited exemption from planning for peat extraction for use in the domestic horticulture industry until 2026, with a further possible extension to 2030. In doing so, it completely ignores the outworking of the High Court ruling in 2019 and the advice from the Government's own Minister of State with responsibility for local government and planning, Deputy Peter Burke, which was put on the record of the Dáil this year. The significance of the High Court ruling is that there must be a dual consent process in place, with planning permission granted under the Planning and Development Acts and licensing granted through the EPA. In October, the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, said that while he was not opposed to a single consent process, any such system must ensure full compliance with EU environmental legislation, including the carrying out of environmental impact assessments where required.The Bill before us today does not do this. If it were passed and enacted, it would be challenged in the courts and in my opinion it would be struck out, as were the 2019 regulations. If this Bill was legally sound, it would not be introduced by Government Senators but by the Minister of State with responsibility for local government and planning, who came to the House a few weeks ago and gave us tea and sympathy. I understand the Government took a decision last night not to support the Bill. We now have the bizarre situation where a Bill being introduced by Government Senators from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is not supported by either party and will be withdrawn today without being pushed to a vote. If that is not the definition of cynical gesture politics, then I do not know what is.

We all want to see the matter resolved and we want our horticultural industry to survive in a manner that protects jobs and workers’ rights. The horticultural sector does not exactly have a stellar record in protecting workers' rights either. I would like a debate on that issue as well. We have to ensure the sector is fully compliant with environmental law and legally binding emissions reduction targets. That can be done if the political will is there but it can not be done with this Bill. Instead of playing politics with people's livelihoods and the environment, the Government should publish the report of the working group on horticultural peat. It should outline how it intends to resolve the problems in a credible way that can be implemented and serves the horticulture sectors, serves the communities that depend on them and protects the environment and its biodiversity. The Bill does not resolve the immediate issues at hand. I would have loved the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, to have explained to the House how it squares with the response he put on the record in October.

The one thing that is clear from today is that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil do not have the interests of rural communities or the rural environment at heart. This is the kind of cynical political theatre that serves nobody and gives people false hope. It only serves the Senators who have their eyes on Dáil seats in the next general election. It is pure political theatre and increasingly the electorate is seeing through it. The electorate wants proper solutions that will protect our environment, see us meet our emissions targets and protect the horticultural sector. It also wants to see less of the political theatrics.