Mr. P.J. McCarthy:

I thank the Deputy for the questions. I agree with what was mentioned earlier on. Optimum scale is important. We did this through an independent advisory, KPMG, back in 2019 to understand what the optimum scale was for AD biomethane plants in Ireland. The 35,000- to 45,000-tonne is the optimum scale.

It is important that whatever we are doing, we are doing it in collaboration with the key stakeholders and agencies. Dr. Frank McGovern mentioned a number of years ago in the public domain that whatever we do we need to ensure it is measurable. My only observation is you have a threshold and a sub-threshold. As a nation, we have a burning platform for Government and that is emissions reduction, we have a burning platform for industry emissions reduction and the farmers are stuck in the middle and they have a burning platform of emissions and carbon reduction. With what we see here, it is important to understand that whatever we do is measurable. The integrated business case looks at this.

The Deputy mentioned capital funding and other examples. Italy is looking at 40% capital funding for the AD biomethane plants and it has a subsidy regime it is looking at that is very similar to what we have promoted in the renewable heat obligation scheme, RHO. The RHO is the cornerstone of our key ask of Government, with 50% capital funding. There is provision in the national development plan, NDP, for 50% funding for the pilot project, so it is within the Government's policy already to have that 50% funding. We need to look behind that figure. It is an NDP to 2030 so why are we not rolling this out for the remainder of the target, under project clover, which is 2.5 TWh from 125 AD plants?

Without drawing too many comparisons here, agriculture and transport are pillar industries in this country. They account for two thirds of the emissions. For the cost of rolling out 125 AD plants, which is €1.5 billion or call it €2 billion and we have €1 billion in capital funding. Look at the capital funding we are putting towards deep retrofit and look at what we can achieve in agriculture and transport if we put our minds to it and look at the economics of doing that 50% capital funding. There are examples out there already happening in Europe. For the capital expenditure, it is capital funding of 50% and for the operating expenditure, that is, the ongoing running costs of an AD biomethane plant, that is where the RHO comes in as a contract for difference between the cost of production of biomethane and your other costs that are there, and there are a number of measures.