Mr. Richard O'Connor:

The data we have so far are predominantly on the Tanasote product. There have been studies on it in the UK for the past four or five years. There is no evidence that cribbing is an issue for the copper oil treatment that is Tanasote. We are not concerned that cribbing will be an issue with the new product.

Bear in mind, the product has only been in existence for four to five years, so when we speak about service life, we are extrapolating what service life we believe we will get based on the degradation we are seeing in year 2, year 3 and year 4. The company behind Tanasote is an international business called Arxada, which says that, properly treated, someone should be able to get a service life of up to 40 years. Compare that with creosote. As I understand the current situation, and unless it has been damaged by storms, the ESB will take a pole product out of its service after 50 years, such is the efficacy of the treatment it is reliant on. The figure would be broadly similar on the telecoms side – Eir, National Broadband Ireland and the other players. Over the years, I have seen plenty of poles that were treated 50, 60 or 70 years ago that are still standing the test of time. Our strapline to customers is that they will have to apply creosote to a fence once in their working lifetimes as farmers or stud owners. That is 30 to 40 years, which is typically what one would expect to get with a properly treated fence.

Based on the data I have seen, I am confident that the new copper oil products will have a reasonable service life. Maybe it will not be as good as creosote, but it will certainly be significantly better than the water-based treatments currently available in the market. In my experience, those water-based treatments typically fail after five or six years of service in the damp Irish climate. We have grown our timber business in creosote significantly on the back of the failure of the copper water treatments.