Mr. Gerry Britchfield:

They are chips from pulp. We take our own pulp but provide them with that product. We want to give them the product they can use in their boiler but we start with our pulp and chip it for them. We also supply companies such as the Radisson Blu in Donegal. They are small-volume applications of a few thousands cubic metres per annum. We are happy to talk to people about bioenergy uses or any use of our fibre. Animal bedding is another area for which we supply pulp wood volume but, ultimately, it must stack up from a commercial perspective. We have panel businesses that make a good contribution and that can make a strong contribution to the State in the future. They employ large numbers of people in the south east. We also want to supply those businesses, as they have an important role to play, as well as the bioenergy sector.

The solution to this is mobilising private supply. Over the past 20 years the State has supported large-scale afforestation by farmers, and much of that land is reaching the point at which it needs to be thinned. According to the COFORD projections for timber supply into the future by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, approximately 500,000 cu. m of additional pulpwood is forecast to be available, and the key for Ireland in growing a bioenergy sector is to mobilise that private supply to make sure the wood-paying capability of the biomass sector is attractive enough to get the farmer to thin his crop, because if he does not do so now the value of the crop will fall substantially and, at clear fell, he simply will not get the value for it and the State will not get the value for the investment it has made in the context of grants and premiums.

With regard to the Bord na Móna piece, I will not comment on speculation in the Sunday newspapers. There are a relatively small number of areas of synergy between Coillte and Bord na Móna because there is not a great deal of overlap. We do not sell the same products, supply the same customers or use the same routes. We export a large proportion of what we produce, either directly or indirectly, while Bord na Móna generates most of its revenue in Ireland. However, there would be savings in overheads. That is an area in which there could be synergy benefits and we recognise that. We have identified what we believe would be the value of those benefits. We have worked closely and well with Bord na Móna. We do not agree with the company's managers on everything but, ultimately, we have put our case and analysis to NewERA and it has done likewise.