Dr. Frank O'Mara:

I will give a quick answer to the question on straw chopping, on which I am not an expert. Tillage soils, by their nature, tend to be lower in carbon and organic matter. When we keep tilling these soils, we run down the organic matter in the soils compared with grassland. This can be bad for soil health and soil function. One way to address the issue is to chop the straw and return it to the soil. In a year where straw is scarce, it is a very valuable and dear commodity. In a year where it is plentiful, it can be hard to give it away in some parts of the country. For two of the last three years, straw has been pretty scarce and very expensive. Obviously, it would not be a good outcome for the country if we ended up not having enough straw to meet our needs.

I will not discuss technologies in any detail but I will refer to pages 3 and 4 of our statement which set out our approach to the issue. The first part is to implement the measures that we already know will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are the measures that were in our MACC. That is what the signpost programme is about and we have said that these measures could deliver a 10% to 15% reduction in absolute emissions from the sector. We need to go further than that so the next big part of our strategy is to research additional technological measures that could further reduce emissions from both methane and nitrous oxide.

The third big part of our strategy is carbon sequestration.

It is to see how much of the residual emissions that would be left after one does all the mitigation one can, and how much of that can be offset by carbon sequestration. I am going over that just to illustrate that developing new technologies is a very important part of what we do. There are some quite promising technologies in the pipeline, including some relating to reducing the emissions from stored slurry. However, they are still at the research stage. We will have to take them through to fruition and see how they work in practice when they are deployed. I am hopeful that there are a number of technologies we will be able to put forward with potential to reduce emissions in the coming years.

I believe Professor Boyle and I have covered most of the areas the Deputy mentioned. I will make a final point on the bogs. Most of the bogs in the country are not drained. They are hill bogs, mountain bogs and so forth. Those bogs are not emitting carbon. If anything, they are probably still sequestering some carbon. It is just the bogs that have been drained in the past that are emitting carbon and where the focus is on rewetting as one possible option. As Professor Boyle said, it will be up to every farmer to figure out if the compensation for that is worth it for him or her.