Dr. Rogier Schulte:

I shall follow up on that regarding another question posed on our access to the Commission and feeding into that process. It is because of initiatives like the Irish Soil Information System, and a representative from the European Commission is chairing the steering committee of that project, that we now have a good working relationship with it, particularly its soils unit in Ispra, in Italy. Also, the paper the members have before them has been read and commented on by the European Commission. The landmark proposal to which I referred is a very large Horizon 2020 proposal on soil quality and soil functions that we are leading for that very reason. We are reasonably satisfied, therefore, with our working relationship with the Commission.

One of the benefits of being a relatively small country is that we have fairly short lines of communication here compared to other countries in that we have good collaboration between the State agencies and the various Departments that are involved. It is relatively easy to get a group of people together and come to a position compared to the position in some of the bigger member states that have to go through more layers, so to speak.

Deputy Penrose asked about the offsetting of carbon emissions. Our figures suggest that, currently, the offsetting equals one third of agricultural emissions in Ireland and that without action that will not improve because our first generation forestry that was planted after 1990 is beginning to mature. We will then go into second generation forestry etc., and the potential for carbon sequestration of those is lower. However, in a report on carbon neutrality as a Horizon point, we also identify actions that can be taken to rectify that, and increasing of forestation is an option in that regard. There is a difference in terms of the physical land base that in theory is available for additional forestry. However, the reality is very much restricted by regulation and social dimensions. It involves forestry, a change of enterprise type, a complete change of business, and there are also social barriers.

A question was asked on the bio-energy side. If as a country we want to seriously get involved in bio-energy, it requires a change in our energy infrastructure, and there would be significant economic costs involved in that. When we talk about bio-energy, like many other countries the thinking is moving away from liquid biofuels because liquid biofuels are considered in direct competition with food production. When we talk about bio-energy now we are talking about either bio-energy crops - willow, miscanthus - where there is less competition with food production.

We are also at a very early exploratory stage of anaerobic digestion of grass in combination with slurry. The one thing this country can produce very well is grass. If we chose to we could produce much more grass than we currently do, which could be used for bio-energy without undue competition for land. There are many obstacles to overcome before that becomes a reality. Again, it would require a change in the infrastructure of our energy distribution network. In terms of Horizon 2020, we should not pin our hopes on that but when we are talking about Horizon 2050, it is one of the options that could be explored.