Mr. Ronan Boyle:

I thank the Senator for that question. Much of our effort, from a research point of view, has been concentrated in Holland over the past ten years primarily because Holland has probably led the way, in the world at this stage, in on-farm emission reductions. The slurry technology system we have has been available and sold in Holland for the past 12 or 14 years. Quite a large number of farms there currently use the system, along with rubber flooring. The Dutch Government has funding in place whereby technology or solutions that deliver reductions on farms from an emissions perspective are supported by a central fund.

On the carbon credits situation, no country is really trading credits on the back of this at present. It is probably something that will come down the line. We look to the US where this technology is relatively new. It is interesting that technology like this is mainly driven by Irish and UK companies. The same types of systems are not available from local companies in different parts of the world. For instance, we launched in America last year and were the first to market with this technology. We have seen very strong interest and growth in the application of the product in the US market. At this stage of the year, we already have quite a number of large installations ready to be fitted over the coming months. The US will probably be in a situation where it can trade carbon credits attached to farms, probably faster than we would be able to do it in Europe.