Ms Deirdre de Bhail?s:

I will start at the start. It began with an invitation to the local community to speak to us about the challenges it faced. We set out an invitation to all sectors. Farmers were among the first to engage with us. We began to develop an understanding of some of the challenges they were facing and then, with the teams in MaREI, set about exploring what solutions are available. That led to a number of EU projects on the peninsula. Initially, there was the short supply chains knowledge and innovation network, SKIN, projects, which very much looked at diversification on farms, agrifood, agritourism businesses and what was possible out of that. At the same time, we were exploring technology with farmers. We considered how sensor-based technologies could support grassland management on farms to minimise inputs and labour and reduce costs, with the environmental, economic and social benefits of that. Those projects then combined to a second EU-funded Horizon 2020 project, entitled Ploutus, which is ongoing. It has sensor technologies in 30 farms on the peninsula. That is bringing together a suite of data to allow farmers to make informed decisions on grassland management on their farms. It is an exploratory process. We have sensors, including weather station sensors, on farms. We have put the sensors to the test in west Kerry. They worked very well in Greece initially but when they are put on mountains in west Kerry, there are issues. We troubleshoot those issues as a team. It is co-creation at its best. The farmers feed back that, for example, they definitely did not have 6 ft. of rainfall on their land on a particular day and the sensor data are a result of the way the wind was blowing the rain. It is about working through those issues together. We one can now pull in a suite of measurements and provide grass growth prediction model for the farmers. That is valuable information for them in the context of planning to use their grass. It is about efficiency on that side.

The other part of the project related to looking at diversification for the future and the opportunities in that regard, such as through agrifood and agritourism businesses. There are many challenges in the context of farm to fork. There is only one butcher left on the peninsula and there is no abattoir. It is quite difficult. We have a farming system that encourages the production of food for export and that is exactly what is happening. The Cathaoirleach is correct. As I stated, we have wonderful restaurants and a wonderful food reputation and more than 1 million visitors, so why is all our food leaving the peninsula? Trying to get it back is almost like trying to reverse the Titanic. There are many people active locally, however. The Bia Dingle group emerged from the EU SKIN project, for example. It now has a brand and a network for sustainable food, bringing in all the local producers. The work at the moment is about developing and encouraging relationships between the tourism and hospitality sector and the agricultural sector. It is simple logistical things.

I have been in meetings at 8 o'clock in the evening with 30 farmers in a room, but the farmers are talking to other farmers, and then at 10.30 in the morning, the hospitality businesspeople are talking to each other. It is a case of never the twain shall meet. Therefore, it is about finding the ways to bring those together. We have some very progressive people in both sectors who are really coming together now to try to make this work. Let us get three to four strong examples up and running and showcase them to show how it works from an economic perspective, which it absolutely must do, but also from an environmental perspective, and then lead the way on it. That is the approach we are taking at the moment on the farm to fork strategy.

One solution to which we keep coming back for the peninsula is the development of biogas and anaerobic digestion as a key circular economy enabler. If the farmers were to slaughter their animals for use in the restaurants in Dingle, it could digest the offal for them. For the smaller farms, an additional income stream could be provided to produce the grass. If that grass is being managed using the sensor technology, it is being managed in a sustainable way that is not driving intensification just to produce grass for an anaerobic digester. It can also take in slurry so there is a direct impact on those emissions. We know from our plans that unless we tackle those emissions, we are not going to meet our targets at all on the peninsula. The percentages are just too high. Therefore, it does all that but then on the other side, we will look at the best option for the outputs of an anaerobic digester. We are very far away from the grid infrastructure but we have a very high demand for transport fuel. The West Kerry Dairy Farmers' Sustainable Energy Community came together to do an energy master plan for themselves and realised they were spending nearly €1 million on subvented agri-diesel per annum, and that was not even including the contractor machinery. There is, therefore, a huge market for transport fuel. That makes the most sense for us on the peninsula and that is very circular. A digester would also produce digestate, which could be put back on the land to grow the grass.

There is another aspect to it. As we develop the relationships with the researchers, Professor Jerry Murphy in MaREI is looking at microalgae upgrading of the gas as well. We get very high-quality biomethane out of it for transport fuel but we also get a by-product in the form of CO2-rich microalgae, which I am told is quite a valuable product. MaREI has been awarded funding by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, to investigate that with the oyster hatchery on the Maharees on the Dingle peninsula over the next three years. It is still at the research phase but it is about all the conversations it generates locally. That builds understanding and it builds capacity, capability and forward thinking in the area. That is what the engaged research does for us there.

I am trying to make sure I am capturing everything here. I mentioned the farm to fork strategy and nutrient management plans. The Chairman asked about the scaling deep concept. This is an emerging concept we have. As we take a look around us, we might ask what is happening here. As I said, we have this living laboratory of all of these projects under way in the areas of energy, agrifood and all of that. What is emerging is that we have a number of businesses. I will take, for example, a local domestic electrical contractor in 2019 when there was a project with Electric Ireland and ESB Networks to install 20 batteries and solar photovoltaic, PV, panels in Ballyferriter. The German battery manufacturer was insisting that it install the batteries so it could stand over the quality. In that meeting, we said there is nothing in that for the community and queried how the community was going to benefit from this. With much back and forth, we got the German manufacturer to agree to go out to tender for the installation. It went out to tender and a local domestic electrical contractor won the contract and was trained by the battery manufacturers. That contractor had the conversations with the teams from Electric Ireland and ESB Networks, saw the direction of travel and established a new solar PV installation company that deals with battery installation and electric vehicle chargers. That company has since gone from two workers to six, which was the last count I heard. Its client base extended first to the rest of counties Kerry, Cork and Limerick and is now all up along the Wild Atlantic Way.

It has gone national. It is really in the right place at the right time and hearing the right conversations. That has been replicated by three or four other businesses since. That is where we are going with the scale. We are looking towards the challenges of the future. The research has to be so central to doing that, so that we are guided in the right way to understand what the potential solutions are. We work with the community to understand those and then the businesses can emerge from being part of the early stage projects and ecosystems. When we defined it as a fusing of enterprise infrastructure and community development, the infrastructure piece of it is that we are now a sustainable mobility pathfinder project for rural areas, to try to get that suite of integrated solutions. It is about working with Local Link Kerry and the NTA to get the bus services in that we need. It is about understanding what is needed in the community and working with the agencies to bring them in.

Early on, we realised we could not just go out and speak to the community about sustainability. People have too many pressing needs or competing needs so we must take a holistic approach. Transport is one that works very well because everyone wants to get from A to B. We can do that. When we layer in the development of enterprise or the potential for new companies, people engage in a whole other way. They see that there could be something in this for them in the future. I hope that addresses the questions.