Ms Andrea Lennon:

I will respond on the questions for the Department of Transport. On alternative fuels, there was a good conversation there about anaerobic digestion. In terms of compressed natural gas, CNG, and biomethane, Gas Networks Ireland has been involved in the roll-out of refuellers and anaerobic digestion for transport. It is still a fairly niche area for road haulage. We have the alternative fuel vehicle grant and there has been some good take-up on that. However, on moving to hydrogen, which is the next step, there are quite a few considerations. Again it is around infrastructure. There is an EU regulation coming into play on alternative fuel infrastructure which will require us to have hydrogen refuellers. That is something that needs to be looked at. The actual production of hydrogen on the island is very important both for the road haulage sector and for other transport sectors such as aviation and maritime in the future. Quite a bit of work has to be done in the hydrogen space. On CNG and biomethane, the refuellers are being deployed and there is a grant for vehicles, but they are more expensive and it is harder to get those vehicles. In a sense we are waiting in the HGV sector for the vehicle technology to come on stream. We can also include electricity in that mix for certain distances for road haulage. We are looking at all those areas.

There is no confusion on the biofuel policy. Generally for fuels, in the Department of Transport we have a very firm plan in our renewable fuel for transport policy. We have a target in respect of B20 and E10 biofuels, in petrol and diesel, and we will be working in a stepped way towards those targets by increasing the biofuel obligation blending rate every year by about 3% or 4%. That is how we are going to get there. I hope that covers the question. The other part of it is maybe for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine officials.