Mr. Richard O'Connor:

There are just a couple of things I would say. To be fair to the authorities here, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has engaged with stakeholders with respect to the risk on creosote because it is a derogated product and has been for many years. It has always been the case in the sector that we would have known in time that creosote would have to be banned.

The issue we have is that, under the biocidal products regulation, BPRs, across Europe, it is a very considerable level of investment that chemical companies need to go through to get a product approved as an alternative to creosote. In Ireland, one product, which the Cathaoirleach referred to earlier on, called Tanasote was approved at the back end of 2021 and a product called Agri Protect was approved by the Department in late January of this year, literally, eight or nine weeks ago. Therefore, there are two chemical alternatives now available under the regulations.

The issue that all creosote treating businesses have across Europe is the technologies that we have been using are relatively old. Creosote is a well established product. It goes back over 100 years. Our business, PDM, is established since 1968 and we have been treating and pressure-treating timber for both the telecommunications and utility, ESB, electricity sector as well as doing fencing treatment.