Mr. Se?n Finan:

To summarise, it is important to stress that the renewable energy directive sets a level of governance in terms of the roll-out of the sector. There are some very strict criteria that have to be met in terms of the output being classified as renewable.

The second point I would like to make is that mobilisation of an industry is the priority, and that is required through policy generation. Any country that has a successful industry has a policy landscape that supports that. It needs be focused on a phased approach, in that we start off with a small number of plants, learn from the challenges or opportunities that they bring and then work on from there. A key point for our members is that the support requirements need to match the actual requirements to make it economically viable. We have seen before where schemes were introduced and, as a result, there was not uptake or a development of facilities because the support requirements did not match the economic realities of the production costs. That is a very important aspect. In doing that and in developing our policy paper, we liaised with farm organisations, such as the IFA, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association, ICSA, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, ICMSA, and Macra na Feirme. We talked to them at the time about the production costs required for silage. They were happy to support our proposal based on the costs we had put forward. That has totally changed now, given the situation with the associated costs. We also spoke with our members who are building these facilities. They have, at their fingertips, the actual operational maintenance cost requirements for these facilities. In the review of our document, we will be going about that consultation again and ensuring that what we put forward in terms of an update to that paper reflects what the requirements of an industry are. That is very important.

To answer the Deputy’s question, I just wish to say that the circular economy is a very important aspect. The spent grains probably would go to animal feed, if not used in a biogas plant. We have to be conscious of the cascading uses. The pig slurry would literally be spread on land. We are not harvesting the nutrient or energy output from that as a result of not putting it through an anaerobic digestion process. It is the same with slurry from a livestock system. If we can take the gas from that and add value to that in terms of making the nutrients more accessible when it is spread on the land, that is a win-win for the circular economy, the circular bioeconomy and the cascading principles, which were talked about.

All of these current feedstocks are being utilised from the point of view of the waste feedstocks. However, probably to fulfil that cascading principle, one can put all that through AD and still utilise it to what it is being used for now in a better and more resource-efficient capacity.

I will leave it at that. I thank the committee for inviting IrBEA here today.