§ MR. FIELDTo ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he will consult with the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture in Ireland regarding the utilisation of peat bogs in Ireland; whether he has had any recent Report from the Department, on the subject; whether he will consider the advisability of giving a special grant to enable the Department to test the efficacy of scientific methods already successfully being worked in Germany and also by private companies.
(Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) For the past two years the Department have been experimenting with German and other machinery for the more economical production 562 of peat fuel. Articles on the subject appeared in the Department's Quarterly Journal, March, 1904. The conclusion drawn from the Department's operations in the year 1904 on the bog leased by them at Inny, county West-meath, is that the failure which has heretofore attended the efforts of private individuals and others to develop the two chief branches of the industry in Ireland, viz., peat fuel and peat moss litter, may be attributed to the defective and, in many instances, to the mistaken methods employed. A number of residents in the district have now arranged to take over the Department's experimental peat works at Inny, and to carry on the manufacture of peat fuel on a commercial scale on the lines indicated by the experiment. The Department propose continuing their operations this year at Castleconnell, county Limerick, where experiments in the manufacture of peat moss litter as well as of peat fuel by improved machinery will be undertaken.