Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We are hearing today there is a balance and an optimum approach to this. We are not hearing huge disagreement that there is an important role for anaerobic digestion in bioenergy. It is about getting the balance between economic opportunity and other factors. The social benefit Mr. Cullinan mentioned of bringing jobs to rural Ireland is an important consideration. The environmental impact is real and varies on how big you go, how you do it and your approach, whether you generate power at the farm or co-op level and put it into the electricity grid or generate gas and put it into the natural gas grid. There is the question around the economic opportunity costs. Big numbers were mentioned. Mr. McCarthy mentioned €2 billion. It might be the best place to put €2 billion but maybe there is a displaced economic opportunity there and that money might be better put in something else. These are all important questions. There are so many moving parts that I do not think we will figure out the optimum balance right here, but somebody has to.

On the modelling that would underpin the policy development around this, can anybody enlighten me as to the sophisticated modelling that is going on? There are so many moving parts and if we get one element wrong there could be an adverse impact. Does anybody want to broach that?