Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Departments’ staff for their presentations. There is a commitment to increasing renewable energy sources by 20% by 2020 but there seems to be a drop off in reaching this target. The concern with bio-fuels is that there will be competing demands with Harvest 2020 and land use given over for bio-fuel crops, in short, food or fuel. How do the Departments see this panning out? There are also restrictions on developing marginal lands that could hamper increasing production. Renewable energy will take massive swathes of land. Across the world, there are land grabs, for want of a better term, to increase the production of bio-fuels. How does the Department see that being played out here?

What is being done to provide more public transport and decrease car usage? There have been reductions in some public transport services. Mr. McKiernan stated EU research has found our method of beef production is more sustainable. Could he elaborate on that and when will the research carried out by Teagasc and the Department on this matter be published?