Professor Fiona Doohan:

Yes, and it should be considered in the long term. At the moment, what is the economic advantage of being GM free? The situation now may not be the situation in future. It does not mean we should turn off those technologies and not invest in them or in collaborative international research in that area. It may be the thing of the future. It may be that the competitive advantage of producing non-GM disappears and we do not want to be at a disadvantage long term in deploying the technology. It is an economic decision. It is not my expertise. It is certainly something to be debated. I am an organic gardener. I have an organic garden in Donegal and the two are very compatible. That is a personal opinion.

In terms of energy crops, how far advanced are we? Up to several years ago, there was a lot of research done nationally in energy crops and then there was a stall in that research. There has been a great uptake in it in more recent years again. The outlet for the energy crops will greatly dictate how much investment is made in them.