Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I would like to ask Mr. Cogan if Ireland, given our weather, is fit to produce sunflower oil. I also have a question for the witnesses from the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine on the production of bioethanol. My understanding is that bioethanol can be produced from pulp for cattle and that it is possible to produce a biodegradable bottle, something I know to be under way in County Clare. I believe, however, that one needs sugar to be available on the world markets at €500 per tonne for this to be viable. Is that correct? That is the figure that I was given.

I agree the market would be an opening for farmers, especially the tillage guys, because we are 1 million bales or 100,000 acres down on tillage this year because people are fed up taking a bad price.

My next query is for Mr. Brady. Will his Department stand over giving a renewal heat incentive, RHI, to a company that erects a factory in another country, like Bord na Móna is doing or going to do? I mean a company that sources the raw material in its host country, hauls it to the factory, processes it there, hauls it by a boat and brings it into Ireland. Will his Department give an RHI to a factory that acts in this way?

Palm kernels are being imported into the country at present. This committee must make it clear that agricultural emissions have decreased.

I have more questions for Mr. Brady. There is an EU directive whereby in order to have food security one could not go too far in producing some of those crops. Why is it okay to not have an EU directive that stipulates every country must have a certain amount of trees or cannot kill all of their cattle like some phenomenal people are talking about at present? Why has one sector been picked on? I have analysed other aspects of agriculture and the directive does not seem to be applied in the same way.

Mr. Nolan referred to a grass anaerobic digester, food and grass in terms of the directive. I looked at such a digester in the past few weeks and can attest to the fact the machine needs a terrible amount of grass in order to work and produce biogas. To be brutally honest, unless one has a proper tariff of 10 cent or 11 cent built in then the task is not worthwhile for farmers. We have talked about using such digesters but, on the other side, there is a directive that has stalled everything.

I have figures on miscanthus willow production to hand that I can show the witnesses. The figures reflect the fact that the farmers who went into such production ended up earning less than €100 per acre per year. Last week, one farmer in interviews on all of radio stations stated that he has resumed beef production because there was no money to be made from growing miscanthus willow.

My next query about trees is for Dr. Hendrick. First, if one lives in the real world, one earns nothing unless one in commercial timber production. I come from a machinery background and worked in forestry. Therefore, I know that a lot of guys who worked in forestry went bust. Second, the sector does not employ many people as one guy can do the whole contract. Dr. Hendrick was correct to say that a grant introduced 18 or 20 years ago has resulted in timber coming on stream from the private sector because some people planted bad land. Such planting was not done for the love of doing so it was done just to receive a grant. It is a fact that the thinnings cost producers money. If one has a plantation that is fit for cutting, unless one has commercial timber one is at nothing. Has the downside been examined? Many areas have been planted - Deputy Martin Kenny's area of Leitrim is one of the worst cases but the west of Ireland has got its fair share of plantations - and communities and schools have been lost. The people in those areas must go somewhere and, unfortunately, emigration has been the answer for a lot of them. Therefore, I do not think we should go down that road.