Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Those three studies were carried out by the best leading international experts. The SEAI has a hugely positive reputation for the independent scientific advice it applies on renewable energy. I must say I know Teagasc is obsessed with industrial grass production as being the only thing we need to do in this country. I have a fundamental problem with Teagasc in this regard. I will come back to the fundamental issue that the reports were done by the best international experts and include their assessment that to make the economics work we would have to have a grass price below the current grass silage price for the animal system. I go back to what I have said about Northern Ireland. My understanding is that the massive environmentally reckless expansion of anaerobic digestion in Northern Ireland is leading to the generation of new pig slurry quantities equivalent to Northern Ireland having a population of 12 million people creating the same levels of slurry. We have a question to answer as to whether we want to turn this country into a slurry pit or do we want to go the green organic high value-added agricultural system.