Dr. Fiona Thorne:

I thank the Deputy for her questions. We have work ongoing at present on social acceptability, but it is about acceptance at farm level. That is an important issue too. It is about the inertia and what incentives might be needed at farm level. Those questions are being fielded through the Teagasc national farm survey at present. The results regarding the appetite at farm level to supply these feedstocks will be available later this year. That is at one point within the supply chain but, at the other end, there is definitely the issue of community buy-in and acceptance. We see that replicated throughout the country where there have been issues to date.

As part of the current thematic call from the Department for research grant applications, we have submitted a research proposal on community acceptance that will use some qualitative research methods to look at the issues out there at present. We would like to look at community benefits, including perhaps the methods that have been used in respect of windfarms and those types of measures, using qualitative methods. It is about using existing technologies, such as those in the wind sector, and looking at what has and has not worked there. We have limited results due to limited examples from the AD sector of what has and has not worked. We will possibly look at the Northern Ireland example as well in that regard. On the timeframe, that research is only at the application stage. It has only been submitted recently so it will be later this year when, hopefully, we will begin that research.