Professor John FitzGerald:

Quite a number of the Senator's points make me think about whether the Senator would like to join our council. On planting trees, very interesting research has been done by a company that owns a large farm, which it has mapped using light detection and ranging sensing technology, LiDAR. This helps to measure the amount of carbon that is fixed each year in the hedgerows. This could be an idea rather than planting everywhere with forest. Last weekend I walked around a part of rural Oxfordshire and while the countryside is not quite as attractive as Ireland's I noted that the mixture was good. It is an interesting idea. I do not have the expertise on it but certainly it should be pursued. We do not really deal with water, but as a result of the mapping, that same company could see where the run-off was from fields into the local river. The company experimented with planting hazel where the water ran underground to see if the leaching into the river of undesirable nutrients could be stopped. Research in the agriculture area is really important and is something that Ireland is doing well.

I will now turn to the issue of reducing land area and food production. We need food. Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy referred to importing biomass product. It seems to be mad, for example, to wipe out the growing of grain in the US to grow maize to make ethanol. This does not seem to be a sensible environmental solution.

Reference was made to nuclear power. When he was the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan, said that he was happy to have an open discussion on nuclear, knowing what the answer would be. Economically, it is not on. I have done research. First of all, nuclear power stations come in too large a capacity of 1,000 MW. For Ireland they have got to be around 400 MW. Unless one could buy a used Russian nuclear submarine and stick it in Dublin Bay, nuclear power stations would not be an option. The cost overruns in France and Finland are bloody massive. I have no ideological view on this but we are not going to see nuclear power stations in Ireland in the foreseeable future.

On the issue of electric car infrastructure I was interested to hear the Senator's example of getting from Cork to Dublin. It is about getting the infrastructure right. We would like to see, as would the members, the Department rolling out a plan that brings together all the agents involved.

I have not thought about incineration. I will leave Ms Burke with the difficult question.