Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I welcome what the Minister said in terms of recognising the problems of importing large quantities of bio-fuel, whether that is producing ethanol by cutting down rain forests or even the madness of transporting ethanol half way around the world and the carbon footprint that entails.

Will the Minister try to ensure in the legislation that all of the power is not in the oil companies' hands to simply source the bio-fuel they require to meet the criteria as cheaply as possible and, therefore, force competition between Irish bio-fuel companies and companies half way around the world? When putting the legislation together, we must positively discriminate in favour of producing bio-fuels domestically and require oil companies to source bio-fuels locally; otherwise, the bio-fuels plan is a waste of time, commercially and environmentally.

See this speech in context