Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputies for their contributions and their support of this amendment. Give or take a few years, peat contracts with the ESB are due to expire in approximately 15 years, by 2020. The peat supply business is still Bord na Móna's main business with the ESB. If Deputies look at the strategic plan, the company can remain in its current position until 2020 or 2025 and then go out of business, or it can choose to move in a different direction. It is good to see the company look ahead to see how it can diversify. That is the reason it seeks authorisation from the House to increase its borrowing limit. The contract with the Edenderry power plant has about nine years to run.

Bord na Móna is conscious that the amount of land covered by some of the bogs could be an asset and it is looking at the situation from that point of view. Some of the land would be suitable for most types of development, but part of it would not. Some sensitive areas will probably eventually end up as special areas of conservation or wild areas.The company is looking at all of the land it has available.

In the context of the company's development and the renewable energy sector, to which a number of Deputies referred, it is looking at potential uses of bogland or cutaway bogs to feed some elements of the biomass and also the co-firing of power stations. Bord na Móna is conscious of cutaway bogs as assets. I have seen other uses being mooted for bogs in some areas, including a proposal to have an airport built in one bog. We will wait and see.

In reply to questions asked by a number of Deputies, Bord na Móna is conscious of the assets it holds. It will hold some of them, use some in the context of its business and sell some to part-finance a number of proposals for future development.

Deputy Durkan referred to security of supply. He made the point that the best possible security of supply is for us to have our own indigenous sources of supply. I concur with that view. Peat is a secure source. Despite what Deputy Eamon Ryan correctly referred to as the environmental consequences of the use of peat, the reason we got permission from the EU for peat-fired power stations was its security of supply. If we did not have peat, it would be one less source of power for us.

It is difficult to constantly balance the three pillars of energy policy — sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply. If we make a decision such as not to have nuclear generated electricity, we are narrowing our options. We have made that decision and nobody has argued much against it. The consequence is that we have to consider sources such as peat, clean coal technology and, as we are doing, to develop renewable energy.

Deputy Durkan also referred to nuclear generated electricity. I do not believe anybody would be greatly shocked one way or the other. For all we know, some of the electricity that comes into our system through Moyle is nuclear generated. If somebody can point it out to me as it goes through the system, he is a better man than I.

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