Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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Mr. Foster's proposal on land spreading septic tank sludge pre-empts what will come out of the EPA report. Huge capacity issues arise. I ask Mr. Foster to correct me if I am wrong, but neither his industry nor public wastewater treatment facilities have the capacity to deal with the tonnage which comes from desludging if we are to comply with the European standard. We are speaking about up to 1 million tonnes of sludge per annum, which is a serious amount of material.

Mr. Foster is correct that one cannot introduce a new feedstock into an anaerobic digestion system. Does that not mean that a new feedstock ends up being stored on site until the bugs have built up a tolerance to it so the system is not shocked? If one was dealing with consistent sewage sludge from the local municipal wastewater treatment facility and then decided to take in belly grass, the belly grass would be on site composting on its own while it was slowly introduced to the feedstock before it could be processed. Does this cause problems with neighbours for these facilities and reputational problems with regard to smells?

I am surprised Mr. Foster has come before the committee advocating land spreading of treated sludge when he has not dealt with the issue of heavy metals, which is the downside. It is a fundamental question. How does one deal with the heavy metal issue? Through the EPA local authorities have provided discharge licences to companies, many of them here through foreign direct investment. How can Mr. Foster advocate it without dealing with a fundamental challenge for the sector?