Mr. Noel Gavigan:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. He referred to the missed opportunity. Developing biogas in Ireland has been something we have been advocating for since our organisation was founded more than 23 years ago. The Oireachtas has published reports on this as far back as 2010, so the issue has been examined. Now is the time to move forward, and to do so rapidly. We have run out of time. The timing could not be – I will use an unfortunate term – better than it is now.

Senator Dooley raised an interesting point. We are all aware that politicians will be criticised regardless of whether they do something right or wrong. There is also a fear within the Civil Service of doing the wrong thing. For a number of years, we have seen significant stagnation in policy development. To be fair to the people in various Departments and other State organisations whom we deal with often, there is a major fear of doing the wrong thing. We need to alleviate that fear a little. A considerable amount of regulation with very complex rules is applied to the various support schemes just to try to alleviate the fear of making even the smallest of mistakes. Maybe we need to consider how to address that issue in future. It has led to a great deal of stagnation in our consideration of the technologies and options for use in decarbonisation.

The Deputy's first question was on food versus fuel. Where biogas in Ireland is concerned, most of the material from farms is grass based. Grass is a particular crop that we are considering. Most of Ireland's grasslands are not tillable ground, so they cannot be replaced with a direct food crop. Obviously, one can feed animals on them, meaning that grass is a material that only has one food-related use, that being, animal production. This means that the impact of grass is much less.

We are living in a climate where we are facing severe decisions in the winter ahead. Fuel and heating are critical parts of life in this part of the world. We all must be cognisant that fuel poverty is an issue currently and will likely be a considerable issue this winter. From that point of view, there is a valid debate to be had on food versus fuel, but fuel also has critical importance.