Mr. Se?n Finan:

Just to follow on from Mr. Phelan's point, bioenergy has a huge role to play in the promotion of the circular economy. Looking at the three different forms, with the gaseous piece, we can take animal slurry, remove the gas from it and produce a renewable fuel that can be used by other sectors. That is agriculture through bioenergy decarbonising other sectors, potentially. We can also use a digestate that displaces the use of chemical fertilisers on land. Looking at liquid biofuels, our current fatty acid methyl ester, FAME, biodiesel producers in Ireland are taking waste fats and tallows from animal processing and rendering sectors and processing that to produce biodiesel. That biodiesel is blended in at the pump as a biofuel blend. In terms of solid biomass, our members are taking first thinning material from forest residues. The material is low-value anyway, but low value for any other sector to potentially utilise it. It is being turned into woodchip and the sawdust is being turned into wood pellets and wood briquettes. That can then be used as a solid fuel or in a biomass boiler to decarbonise high-temperature heat. Inherently, bioenergy contributes to a circular approach. However, the policy needs to support that and we need to raise awareness of that. For instance, if we want to promote the use of timber in construction, to get construction timber and saw log we need to thin the forests and remove some of the smaller trees to get larger trunks and material. If we do not have a solid biomass sector, we will not have an offtaker for that low-value material. By not taking a broad approach in terms of the renewable energy sectors and promoting all of the benefits of all of the sectors through the policy landscape, we risk leaving behind the likes of the bioenergy sector. As a result, we will not achieve the optimum output in terms of construction timber at the end of the forest lifecycle. We have a large target in terms of forestry, but that is a whole other discussion. Those are a number of examples as to how our sector is inherently involved in the circular economy. There needs to be a broader awareness of that among the public, and at all levels, in order for its full potential to be realised.