Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael)

It is good to be here discussing this important issue, which will only get more significant as the years go by. It is important to put in context the scale of the problem we have. Some of us on the Joint Committee on the Constitution met the Indian Ambassador a number of months ago and we were trying to wrap our heads around the scale of the Indian subcontinent. He informed us that the Indian population increases by the same number as the population of the island of Ireland every two months. That is the scale we are dealing with.

Deputy O'Rourke quoted Scarlett O'Hara and I will paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in that we do not amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of things. America and China, which has a population approximately 30% bigger than India, together with India contribute over 50% of significant pollution and, in truth, they are only making very small token gestures.

One must consider some positive aspect from the current price of oil. For the first time ever, it has started to dawn on the American population that it cannot have V6 gas-guzzling engines to drive from one end of the country to the other just for fun. It is also starting to dawn on the aircraft industry that it is not just a matter of jetting here and there on the back of cheap fuel. There must be a balance, which I am not sure we are striking, between energy and food provision.

In 1900, 70 years before I was born, the population of the world was approximately 1.5 billion. The projected numbers for the end of this century are in the region of 20 billion, which is a massive increase. The land producing food is reducing because of climate change. The land which is marginal is not able to produce a crop yet the numbers of people are ever increasing. The people of the world must certainly be fed.

The way we are currently promoting the biofuels industry, whether first or second generation, will in time be considered a crime against humanity. I am speaking as a commercial farmer. One cannot take an acre of good land, sow a crop and expect to get between 1.75 tonnes and 2.1 tonnes of product before using the same amount of energy to press that crop that would be saved through using the product. It would amount to three quarters of a tonne of biofuel. One cannot make any saving to the environment this way.

It has been said here that agriculture is a major polluter, which is true. There is innovation within the agricultural sector at the moment which is not being substantially supported by Government. Practically all funds for research and development are coming from the private sector. I am a commercial dairy farmer and the Keenan Group is doing significant research into the reduction of gas from bovine animals, which must be considered.

The position taken by the World Trade Organisation to Ireland, which will lead to a reduction in cattle numbers by 1 million, will make no difference as somebody elsewhere on the planet will take up the same production. A carbon sink is provided by other crops, including forestry and grass. Crops consume the negative emissions to the atmosphere and sugar beet, for example, was a superb carbon sink crop. We lost that industry far too easily.

I have been trying to promote the extraction of biomethane gas from dairy stock for some time. This would take some research and time to look into the prospects of pooling dairy herds, putting together herds of hundreds of stock and housing them all year round while extracting biomethane gas. Bovine stock are a negative but we should take some positive from them. If we could extract biomethane gas we would use less diesel and petrol, which would be a benefit.

A word people have studiously avoided using is "nuclear." We must accept that at some stage in the future of energy production, Ireland will not be able to ignore this type of energy. I am not saying we must go in that direction but we must consider it. We should open the debate on the nuclear option.

France and Finland have significantly reduced their emissions and have gone very much in the direction of using nuclear energy. We should get the debate on the table and consider the positives. Of course there are negative aspects but we should weigh the options.

The Government must be more proactive in the grants available. Deputy O'Rourke spoke of solar panels on rooftops but a negative aspect is the SEI not providing grants for wood log gasifiers, which are timber burners. There is a grant for wood pellets, although there is a production cost in turning wood shavings into pellets. We do not produce those pellets in Ireland so there is also a cost in terms of transport, as well as the cost to the environment. I cannot understand, when wood is available freely throughout the country now with plantations available for thinnings, why people cannot use them. The thinnings are available as a resource and a number of farmers provide them with minimal transport costs, if only burners could be grant-aided.

We should consider the matter. I pursued the issue a bit and an answer I received was silly in the extreme. I was told that if a grant was provided for a wood log gasifier, people could burn what they wanted in it. It is a self-defeating argument. If somebody goes to the bother of procuring a wood log gasifier, that person will not put other products into it.

I would like to see the extension of recycling centres. If the public is given the opportunity to recycle and not shove everything they have into a landfill site, they will take it. We are not fast enough in getting the recycling centres open to the public.

I spoke to a geologist yesterday who made a very stark point. He told me it took tens of thousands of years to produce coal, oil, gas and other products we are burning for energy, and in a matter of a few hundred years we have begun to extract and consume the products for energy and have nearly consumed it all. I spoke of a balance at the beginning, which we must strike. We need to achieve a balance between renewables, such as wind turbines on land and off-shore, nuclear energy and other types of renewables.

If we are proactive and positive in the issue, we will make a difference. However, if India, China and the US continue to ignore concerns, what we do in this country will have no impact whatever.

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