Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I do not know what he is doing there because if we do not stand up and be counted, nobody else will concede to us.

My colleague, Deputy Eamon Ryan, made a very good point earlier. I am aware the proposals are to import cheap bio-fuels from other countries by flying them 8,000 or 9,000 miles, just as the Government is doing currently with the food industry. Soon we will be importing all of our food from the CAIRNS group of countries, which was negotiated by the Ministers in Brussels in the past few years. That is strange.

This Bill is the litmus test of the Government's intentions regarding the development of bio-fuels. This is a golden opportunity for those in Government to show they are genuinely concerned about the need to deal with the issues that affect us now on two levels. First, there is the question of dealing with the carbon footprint. We cannot solve the world problems caused by global warming but we can make our own contribution to addressing the global warming issue. That is what we must do, and we must do it urgently.

We can deal also with the question of importation of fuels from other countries. We can introduce import substitution on the one hand and security of supply on the other. Both are environmentally friendly and economically beneficial and both are in the hands of whatever Administration is involved in the negotiations. I cannot understand why nobody on the Government side thought about the way they might do that.

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