Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will stay with agriculture while we are on that topic. Having researched the technologies a bit, I firmly believe that anaerobic digestion will be a key technology and key tool in decarbonising agriculture, as was just discussed. Mr. Callanan mentioned acclimatising the mean annual temperature curve, and there were references to anaerobic digestion. It seems that we do not really have a policy or strategy when it comes to anaerobic digestion. There are very few anaerobic digesters in Ireland. Those that are operating took many years to get up and running because of the obstacles that are there. Then, when they are running, they are subject to very stringent rules and regulations in comparison to many of our European counterparts. In Germany, for example, there are approximately 10,000 anaerobic digesters. I am not for one second advocating that we would have that number here, but we have so few. It is a key co-operative approach to reducing emissions from agriculture. Mr. Callanan mentioned this earlier. Is there an estimate of the percentage of carbon emissions reductions we can achieve from a good anaerobic digestion strategy? This will impact all sectors but particularly in terms of agriculture.