Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

To answer that question on what are sustainable bio-fuels, first, it is taking what are currently waste products and environmental problems such as tallow or vegetable oil from existing processing industries and turning them into an energy source. I see that as sustainable.

Second, the development of second generation bio-fuels — the technology must be delivered here — from algae or from other lignnocellulose material that currently cannot be transferred into bio-fuels but which scientists state may become a reality, would be a further sustainable source.

Third, if we are to use bio-fuels from land use, produced either at home but particularly abroad, rather than from the first two processes I mentioned, it is crucial that they be sustainable in that the emission reduction achieved is real, not as in the case of some corn-to-ethanol or maize-to-ethanol bio-fuels that have come, particularly from the United States, in recent years. They should not come from land use processes that themselves are unsustainable, either in terms of the effect on food prices or on the natural environment. The definition of sustainable bio-fuels is those that meet such criteria.

In the absence of us supporting the European Commission in this proposal, two things happen. The first is that the entire European climate change package falls apart or certainly encounters difficulty because the renewables component, of which bio-fuels is one component, is a central structure keeping the European package together.

The second, which is more crucial, is that while bio-fuels will develop regardless of what the European Union does, if it does not set targets and procedures, there will not be any sustainability criteria in place. Supporting the European Union targets is a way for this country to support proper standards in distant parts of the world because the European Union has the buying power to affect the standards that apply across the world.

The pilot scheme contracts were signed and cannot be unsigned. The reason I want to put in place a bio-fuel obligation scheme is that it will treat all people in the industry on a level playing field where as long as they meet such sustainable criteria they have the ability to supply the market. That is a better approach than the approach taken to date of grant-aiding or giving a tax break to particular companies.

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