Mr. Stephen Treacy:

Analysis off what kind of area would be needed for those measures would be done by Teagasc rather than us in devising the policies and measures. Teagasc has modelled on the basis of the inclusion of 25% clover on beef farms and 15% on dairy farms.

I can give some more information on land area use. The information is in our inventory report. There are approximately 800,000 ha of forest, just over 700,000 ha of cropland, 4.3 million ha of grassland, about 1.1 million ha of unmanaged wetlands, in the region of 70,000 ha of managed wetlands and 125,000 ha of settlements. That gives some sense of the land make-up.

Regarding land measures, the Senator is probably aware that the climate action plan contains the measure on water table management on agricultural land and organic soils. Approximately 40,000 ha was identified there. Teagasc is working on the more detailed elements of this and it has not reached our stage yet.

We produce the inventory for transport based on fuels sold. In a sense it takes account of everything that happens. Any measure affecting demand, usage or switching of vehicles is captured by the use of either less or more fuel. We pick up the impacts of all those measures. That approach means it is very difficult to identify directly from the inventory sources the impact of those individual measures.

That is why we rely on our suppliers, such as the SEAI and the Departments of Transport and the Environment, Climate and Communications to get an analysis of the expected delivery of measures for the future. We then subtract that from the projection of fuel used with the current basket of measures. That is how that process works.

In a sense, the inventory is very agnostic about the measures used. If the fuel is burned, the emissions are recorded and if not, they are not. It does not rely on a bottom-up calculation of what we think particular measures are doing. It looks at the end of the pipe and what was actually done. It means we need to use other modelling approaches in conjunction to understand the projected impact of these kinds of measures.