The future supply of horticultural peat in Ireland will be under the spotlight at the Oireachtas agriculture committee this week.

Discussions at the meeting tomorrow (Wednesday, June 24) of the Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food will focus on stock levels, extraction sites and the regulatory environment.

Speaking ahead of the meeting committee cathaoirleach Deputy Aindrias Moynihan said: “Peat continues to be at the centre of ongoing environmental, economic and regulatory debates.

Peat

Deputy Moynihan added: “Among some of the other aspects of horticultural peat we will look at during the meeting are broader policy goals, the balancing of the horticulture sector’s immediate needs with long term environmental commitments.”

European Commission

Earlier this month European Commission referred Ireland to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for allegedly failing to comply with the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) rules on peat cutting projects.

The commission said that Ireland failed to comply with an EIA directive from 2011, which requires member states to carry out an assessment of the environmental impacts of projects "likely to have a significant negative impact on the environment".

Peat extraction falls under the scope of that directive. The Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC) welcomed the move.

The IPCC said the commission’s action "follows years of concern over the environmental damage caused by unregulated industrial peat extraction, damage that extends beyond the destruction of peatland habitats".

Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food

For the first session of the meeting on horticultural peat tomorrow the committee will hear from:

Growing Media Ireland;
Klasmann-Deilmann Ireland Ltd;
Irish Farmers Association (IFA);
Irish Hardy Nursery Stock Association;
Frank Corbally, consultant to EU fruit and vegetable producer organisations.

The second session of the meeting will include the EPA.