Ms Julie O'Neill:

Anaerobic digesters are part of the options we look at in bio-energy and I do believe they have a role to play. They could certainly play a role on the heating side.

To pick up the Deputy's second point, I most certainly am a person who questions and challenges everything. I described the role of the chairperson in my opening statement as being a critical friend to the organisation. I mean "friend" in the sense that I am there to help the organisation to be as effective as possible, and "critical" in that I believe the role of the board is to challenge the executive of the authority, to look at the evidence and proposals the executive brings and subject them to critical examination before they are put into the public domain.

When the Deputy says I have been converted, it sounds like I might have taken to wearing sandals, growing a beard - if I could - and going around with a tent on my back.

I do not see it like that. In fact, what appealed to me about this role is the opportunity to build the synergies, not the conflicts, between employment creation and the other challenges of making Ireland economically, environmentally and socially sustainable and to build on those in the context of meeting our targets on sustainable energy. While I am certainly at this point convinced of the value of wind as a contribution to this, I remain open on the role of all the technologies. I remain open to any analysis that is brought forward to me, from within the authority, from around the board table or from outside the authority and I will subject that analysis to the same critical analysis as what I get from within the authority.

Solar energy was mentioned. I am certainly hoping that, over time, we may not be too far off where solar begins to be able to make a bigger contribution than it can currently. The chief executive of the authority, Dr. Brian Motherway, has accompanied me today, along with William Walsh who is the finance and corporate services director and Mattie McCabe, who is the company secretary and whom I should have introduced at the outset. He has made the point recently that one should beware of snake oil salesmen. There is no new product that comes on stream in this territory that will provide the one magic bullet that will solve all the problems. I wish there were but there is not. Therefore, we have to keep all of the technologies under review with an open mind and watch where they are contributing. To pick up on the Deputy's point, every single proposal that comes before my board will be subject to rigorous cost-benefit analysis both in terms of whether it is the best and most efficient use of the limited resources available to us as an authority and also in terms of its wider cost-benefit effects for the Government and for the economy. We do this quite rigorously.