Mr. Peter O'Shea:

I will speak briefly on transport. The ESB's ecar business is responsible for operating, developing and rolling out the ecar charging network. Its analysis from operating the network in recent years indicates that the vast majority of charging for electric vehicles will be done at home rather than at public charging points. However, there is a really big caveat in that regard, because in order to build confidence among the public that they will not get caught with range anxiety, we need to have the charging network. That goes back to the question from the Chair at the very outset, in the sense that a lot of the chargers are required to be there but they might not be used on a 100% basis.

In terms of biomass and biofuels generally, we see biofuels as having an important part to play within the energy mix in Ireland in the years to come. The development of both biogas and biomass has attractions for the agriculture sector. I note, however, that when one sees the word "bio" in front of fuel, it means it will be scarce because of the development around it. One positive thing from Europe with the new renewable package is that there have been questions and concerns about whether biomass is genuinely renewable. The latest directives in Europe put very strict sustainability criteria against biomass to ensure it is genuinely renewable.