Mr. John Enright:

I have a couple of points on forestry and what Deputy Cahill said. There are vast areas of this country we cannot plant, whether it is because of environmental designations or whatever. The Deputy mentioned hen harrier areas. A hen harrier threat response plan was supposed to be published looking at all these issues, including forestry plantations, but it has not happened. There are a lot of farmers in those areas who want to plant their land but they cannot do so. Certainly, it is an issue which needs to be addressed.

As to biomass, we must look at recent history, which has not been good for farmers. Farmers who got involved in miscanthus had a very bad experience. They were badly let down to be fair to them. If we are to encourage biomass production going forward, we will have to look at what happened with miscanthus. Farmers will have to get better guarantees that if they go into this enterprise, commitments will be delivered.

I have two points on biogas and solar power. Mr. Cooney mentioned the feed-in tariff. These projects will have to be made economically viable for people who get involved in them. Commitments must be made to those who get involved in those projects. We are concerned that there will be a focus on industrial scale projects as opposed to farm-based ones. We have visited farms in different parts of Europe where we have seen bio-digesters and solar panels on farm sheds operating very successfully where farmers have been incentivised. That is what we favour in Ireland as opposed to industrial scale projects. Public policy will have to move in that direction. Not only would it have a climate change benefit, it would also have a rural development benefit. It is much better to have ten farmers with solar panels on their roofs than one major industrial project in terms of buy-back for rural communities. A lot of our members are involved in renewables and the big blockage we have seen involves grid connections, which must be addressed. There are delays in getting grid connections and it costs money. There is a concern that the cost of grid connections will increase further. If we are to promote these projects, the grid connection blockage will have to be addressed.