Mr. Se?n Finan:

It is legitimate that there would be concerns. We need to go through them and alleviate them. Some regulations assist in reducing those concerns. The first issue we see as important is that the sector is grown on a phased basis so a certain number of plants would be constructed and the lessons learned from those developments would be taken by the industry and all stakeholders and that in the next phase lessons would be taken and amendments made, if required. Second, the animal byproducts regulations determine how the industry and feedstocks are treated from the perspective of risk to the food supply chain and so on. We have very strong animal byproducts regulation in Ireland and all the current plants are governed by that regulation. The other is the renewable energy directive. It sets very clear sustainable criteria on the sector. Percentages of grass and other things are limited by the reduction of emissions through the renewable energy directive. That is another very important mechanism by which risk can be reduced.

On whether the sector is going to threaten beef farmers, many beef farmers are under threat as it is from the economic merits of their enterprises. We would very clearly say that any biomethane strategy that is introduced must ensure that everyone along the supply chain gets a fair return and that it is not set up on the basis that it provides renewable gas and it does not provide for paying for feedstocks, because if feedstocks are not paid for, farmers will not produce the feedstocks and we will end up with an industry that is similar to other industries that have developed where the farm might not get the percentage of the final return that they would require to be viable. That is a very important principle that our organisation adopts. Furthermore, we do not use chemical fertiliser to grow feedstocks. Any support mechanism needs to ensure that we completely eliminate chemical fertiliser, which is possible, by the use of digestate. That is an emission that would be reduced as well as potentially a reduced cost for the farmer. The other risk that concerns farmers is the competition for feedstocks. We need to locate these facilities, initially, potentially in areas of the country where there is less competition. That is what a strategy should look at. It should look at what parts of the country are potentially ready to go from the perspective of a biomethane sector, where, in other parts of the country, there might be competition for certain feedstocks. That is certainly something to look at.

Finally, there is potential concern among farmers about the movement of grass silage from livestock feed to biomethane biogas production. One thing that is very clear is there is an opportunity here. This is all in our policy paper how biomethane biogas production can very clearly act as a buffer in times of fodder shortage. It can act as a reserve in that biocore or any other facility can stockpile silage. If farmers run short for a period, and generally a fodder shortage only lasts a couple of weeks due to weather or other concerns, that can be replenished and in the meantime that feedstock could be used by farmers in the short term and potentially other feedstocks used to replace that silage in the intervening period while the reserves are built up again.

To summarise and answer the question, there are risks but we can come up with ways we can alleviate all the concerns and risks by way of what I have outlined. The current regulations we have contribute to that. Broad principle points would also help as well, backed up by policy measures, potentially.