Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Are facilities such as anaerobic digesters available to support what Cré wants to happen and to enable it to go ahead? When the representatives of Cré talk about composting, they are talking about anaerobic digestion and the aerobic version of the process. Have they encountered problems in getting the facilities in question? I will explain why I am asking that question. Local authorities give planning permission for such facilities every now and then. I am thinking particularly of my local authority in Roscommon. The only factor that seems to be considered when planning permission is given for the development of a facility in a certain area is whether it is likely to be the subject of relatively little objection. In other words, the facility is located where the residents are least likely to cause trouble about it. The proximity principle always seems to be completely ignored when decisions are being made on where to locate these facilities. As a result, the amount of energy required to bring the stuff to the facility is greater than the amount of energy created by the facility at the end of the day. It seems - in my county, anyway - that planning decisions are made on the basis of how the wool can be pulled over people's eyes.

I will spell out what the consequence of that attitude is when something like anaerobic digestion is mentioned. This phenomenal and brilliant technology should be more widely used. We should look at what is being done in Germany. When the development of an anaerobic digestion facility is proposed, however, people use words like "incinerator" and assign to it every negative connotation they can think of. We seem to be in a heap in this regard at a time when facilities of this nature are needed. At present, meat processing plants have to transport material like belly grass to one of these facilities, whereas ideally they would be able to do this work on-site. One of the main worries that people in many of these areas have from a planning perspective is that there might be a smell in the local area. I suggest that those living near some of the plants to which I refer might have to endure less of a smell if there was one of these facilities on-site. It seems that the proximity principle is being ignored, sadly, so that people can be codded. As a consequence, we have very few facilities of this kind. Are there many facilities out there? Is there much hope of getting new ones? What way should we go with this?