Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I will give some further detail on what has been produced to date under the scheme. Of approximately 67 million litres bioethanol, 55% was imported, of 103 million litres of EN590, approximately 50% was imported, of 5.5 million pure plant oil, 7% was imported and of 4.5 million of captive fleets, 3% was imported. These are the figures I have.

In terms of how this will work, we are keen and intent on developing an Irish bio-fuels industry using home sourced crops, whether second generation bio-fuels, cereal, beet or rape seed oil or waste products, which can deliver Irish fuels. First and foremost, we must see how the European sustainability criteria will work. I believe they may give a real benefit to Irish produced material which will meet the requirements in terms of emissions reductions and not seeing the chopping down of rain forests or the change in land use problems which are there with imported bio-fuels. They will give us a real opportunity to promote home-grown bio-fuels and are due to come out at roughly the same time as our legislation will be brought before the House, hopefully early in the new year. That will give us time to set up this scheme, get it working and adjust accordingly to promote Irish bio-fuel producers.

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