The chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Jackie Cahill, has said that the importation of peat needs to stop.
The comments follow a report published on Monday (January 17) by a government-established working group.
It was set up by Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan after High Court rulings determined that large-scale peat harvesting requires planning permission and licensing by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The final report of the group on the use of peat moss in the horticultural industry stated that importing the growing medium into Ireland “does not make environmental, economic or ethical sense”.
Peat
The working group stated that the use of peat in horticulture should be phased out by 2035 at the latest, and should be eliminated from the retail sector by 2025, provided that alternative materials were available.
The document outlined a series of recommendations including that the horticultural industry could potentially harvest peat from bogs of less than 30ha as a solution to its needs for 2022.
In response to the recommendations in the report, the government outlined the measures it intends to pursue:
- The commissioning of an independent expert to assess levels and suitability of current stocks of peat across all suppliers, including Bord na Móna, for the Irish horticultural sector;
- The commissioning of experts on planning to provide free advice to those who wish to extract peat in a manner which is compliant with the relevant regulations on sub-30ha bogs;
- Research to deliver alternatives to peat for the horticulture sector.
Deputy Cahill said that the harvesting of peat in bogs under 30ha must get up and running urgently, adding that the importation of peat “needs to stop”.
The committee is set to invite ministers from the departments of agriculture, environment and heritage to address it on the proposed government response.
It is also planning to write to Bord na Mona to determine how many sites under 30ha it has available.
In a letter to Taoiseach Micheál Martin last year, Deputy Cahill wrote that the current importation policy is “achieving nothing in the battle against climate change as peat is still being harvested elsewhere and then shipped across the continent”.
An exercise in futility
Meanwhile, Laois-Offaly representative Carol Nolan has said the government response to the working group report has caused “widespread shock and dismay within the horticultural peat sector”.
The independent TD said that the establishment of the group has “become an exercise in futility”.
“It is now abundantly clear that the government had no interest in hearing what the sector had to say, which effectively brings us right back to the starting point,” she stated.
The TD said that the government has chosen to ignore the working group’s recommendation on the gradual phasing out of peat in the horticulture sector.
“I am calling on Minister Noonan to urgently revise the government’s response to the report and I am specifically asking him to accept those recommendations which will avoid the calamitous outcomes that will inevitably overtake and collapse the sector in their absence,” Nolan concluded.