Mr. John Muldowney:

The food versus fuel debate is ongoing at European level. We are working with our colleagues in the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to keep an eye on what is happening there. Regarding the Irish situation, we have grants available for the planting of biomass crops but, again, they are led by demand and, at the moment, demand from farmers to plant these crops is extremely low. Therefore, we do not see much of a conflict as yet until it evolves a bit more.

The EIA agriculture regulations place controls on how much land can be reclaimed, but there is only a strict limit on wetland that is always wet. If one is reclaiming land for the first time, the limit on that is 0.1 hectare so, more or less, one cannot do it without planning permission. After that, the threshold for drainage of existing agricultural land is 15 hectares, so it is quite high. It is unlikely that we will see in the near future a farmer in the Irish context with an average of 35 hectares planting half of his farm and leaving land reclamation in half.

Regarding Teagasc research, which was mentioned by Mr. McKiernan, the main research has been done. Teagasc published the marginal abatement cost curve analysis last April, which fed into the NESC report, and looks at the main abatement measures available to farmers at the moment. These range from extended grazing to better nutrient management to better genomic selection of dairy cow breeding. They are all cost-beneficial measures. The aim of the Teagasc advisory at the moment is to achieve a high adoption of those measures.

Teagasc is trying to produce a scenario analysis regarding the possible roads available to Irish agriculture to achieve carbon neutrality. It is looking at everything from reducing stock numbers to adoption of new technologies, including those that are too costly at the moment but which might become more cost-effective and blue-sky technology. It is 37 years from now until 2050, so new technologies will come on stream, become more cost-effective and could be a solution.