Mr. Thomas Ryan:

In response to Deputy Stanley, the figures quoted in the presentation were published by the EPA in December 2017 based on greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 up to 2016. The discussion on the amount - how much - clouds the real need for action in terms of how to. The data are the data and the figures are the figures. The president referred in his presentation to the need for the reopening of GLAS. Farmers are actors in the rural community.

There is a need for farm-scale, community and rooftop renewables, be they solar, micro or wind. The energy White Paper published in 2015 by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment speaks to an energy citizen, but to be honest, as rural communities we have yet to see the policy measures put in place to empower rural communities to take on renewable energy production in a sustainable way to ensure we do not have a similar bad experience as happened in 2008 where the policy support measures were not in place. There is a need for a tariff premium outside of the auction system proposed by the Department for farm-scale, community projects and for roof-mounted renewable projects such as solar. In addition, there is a need to scale up programmes such as the carbon navigator and smart farming which are addressing the challenge. They are speaking to the dual challenges of improving farm incomes while enhancing the environment.

Reference was also made to biomass. I hope we are about to have a second start at a biomass programme. The lack of development of a supply chain and of supply centres meant that we had a false start a number of years ago. If we are serious about moving from focusing on "how to" rather than "how much" in terms of the figures, we must focus on biomass, farm-scale, community renewables and scaling up existing mitigation programmes such as carbon navigator and smart farming in addition to the reopening of GLAS. That is where the discussion needs to go in terms of putting in place the necessary policy measures.