Mr. John Reilly:

Deputies Dooley and Stanley referred to an issue. Increasingly over the past couple of years, the company has begun to turn its attention to the challenges of decarbonisation in the transport and heating sectors. Bord na Móna is looking very much at anaerobic digestion, biogas production and ways to make greater use of our large landbank. In terms of these types of operations, we are also considering a technology called power to gas, which we considered about 15 years ago. For example, windfarms can be developed. When that wind energy cannot be used because the demand on the grid is not high enough, then it is used to create hydrogen as a chemical store, which can then be used in the natural gas grid and for methanation.

As the transition begins, we are considering ways to optimise our landbank. Bord na Móna's total landbank is large at 80,000 ha but is quite small relative to the total peatlands in the country, and most of it is no longer what we would call peatlands, as Mr. Shier has described. Looking at how we best utilise the landbank for infrastructural scale that can contribute to economy-wide decarbonisation, not just in the electricity sector on which we have been focused for years, but on the transport and heating sectors. We have a new programme, which we have put a lot of time and investment into, and we hope to be able to make some contribution in those sectors going forward.