Dr. Oliver Kinnane:

Hemp has huge potential. I have worked with hemp, although not so much in recent years. Previously, when I was in Trinity College, we did a lot of work on trying to characterise the thermal and acoustic properties of hemp. It is a wonderful building material. It has great potential. It sequesters an awful lot of carbon over its lifetime. One can grow multiple crops within a single year. Using hemp is a no-brainer. I have retrofitted my own house with hemp insulation. Hemp is a winner really and we would love to see more focus on it.

I have spoken to Professor Tom Woolley, a practising architect in Northern Ireland who is also involved in Hemp Federation of Ireland. He said that in the last year a large number of farmers have been moving to grow hemp. He said there is a gap between farmers and the designers who are keen to use hemp. To make hempcrete one takes off the woody core of the hemp stalk, chip it and mix it with lime or cement, as the case may be, but there is no processing facility for that in the country. We use hemp fibres and mash them into a wool product to make hemp insulation. There is no processing facility for that either. Professor Woolley and anybody involved in the hemp industry would like that to be funded by the Government because it is hard to understand.