Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht
Licensing and Harvesting of Seaweed in Ireland: Discussion
5:30 pm
Mr. Jean-Paul Deveau:
That is a very technical question. It should really be addressed to the fracking industry. It revolves around the specific attributes of alginate that work in the fracking industry. It is something we are not familiar with. We are familiar with ascophyllum, which is not as desirable as other seaweeds for this particular industry. Following the shutdown of the brown seaweed industry in Chile as a result of over-harvesting, which I mentioned earlier, the Chinese were looking for alternative sources around the world and were exploring heavily here in Ireland in order to obtain raw material for the fracking industry.