Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentation. I have a few quick questions. Mr. Donnellan was not there at the time, but Donnelly's Coal in Galway was closed last year with redundancies. This Christmas, the coal yard in Sligo is closing and Bord na Móna is involved in that. Derryfadda on the western side of the Shannon is out of peat production. Mr. Donnellan referred to 150 jobs going but he needs to be honest with the committee. Those are redundancies and the jobs are not being replaced. Wind turbines do not replace jobs. I have listened to Mr. Donnellan talk about Kildare and it is positive that Bord na Móna is going to keep its head office there. He referred to going into aquaculture, which is a seven-year project and, having spoken to his people myself, I understand it may not work. Bord na Móna is also intending to grow herbs for medicines, but that may not work either. We have no plan going into the future. What is envisaged west of the Shannon, which is an area that has been good to the company down through the years? There are 50 to 60 jobs going in Derryfadda and there will be no production west of the Shannon from next January. It is a place that provided the company with good workers and which co-operated with it down through the years.

I refer to biomass. What is the carbon footprint of a tonne of biomass brought from north Africa, Australia or parts of America? Can Mr. Shier provide the accurate carbon footprint per tonne? The witnesses referred to growing some in Ireland. I have spoken to farmers who are in Bord na Móna's biomass scheme currently. It costs €400 an acre to rent land in the dairy sector in the south of the country. In other places, it may be between €200 and €250 an acre. Biomass is not providing returns. Is the company calling on the Government to provide a proper subsidy? It is in wonderland if it thinks farmers will go down the biomass route on the basis of the figures mentioned. We have heard about fuel security and the green agenda over the past number of years. Everybody in the country is being told that if we go green, we will not need imports. The witnesses can correct me if I am wrong, but if we go down the biomass route, we will import €65 million to €120 million of extra imports between now and 2027. That money will go out of the country on foot of the decision Bord na Móna has taken in the past six months.