Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputy Bannon.

I welcome the Bill, which is a response to the EU directive which necessitates that 10% of transport fuel must be supplied by renewable sources by 2020. It should be viewed as an opportunity. The underlying core of the legislation is to create an opportunity but I sense it is a stick without a carrot in several ways. Ireland is at the bottom of the league in the production of farm energy. Tomorrow the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security, of which I am a member, will be addressed by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food regarding greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and their impact on climate change as well as the potential for bio-fuel production, which is key.

The Bill obliges oil companies to supply 4.5% of their product through bio-fuel but the 2% Government levy on petroleum products also applies to bio-fuels. There should be a tax break or other incentive for bio-fuels. A sum of €50 million has been set aside by the Minister to pay for carbon credits. Some of that money could be used to resource research, development and production of an agri-renewable energy industry and to encourage alternative energy investment.

Issues such as the feed-in tariff need to be addressed. There was unanimous agreement at a joint committee meeting that the tariff should be brought into line with the European norm to make it attractive for people to get into bio-fuel production on a sustainable scale. Unfortunately, the Bill does not provide an obligation for the verification of the source of the bio-fuel to ensure it is from a non-food source or from sustainable agricultural waste. There is also no requirement on oil companies to source a percentage of their supply from local producers of bio-fuel to assist the rapid development of the bio-fuel sector in Ireland. In addition, there are vague references to the critical issue of standards of bio-fuel to ensure safety for customers.

The message to the public is bio-fuel production must almost develop on its own with grants provided here and there. They are not guaranteed or sustained and there is no joined-up thinking. This casual intervention creates a top down layer. We have, on the one hand, an initiative where 600,000 gallons of ethanol is being produced from whey by Maxol in Cork but there is no national strategy to promote the co-ordination of this industry and, in particular, to ring-fence seed funding for smaller bio-fuel plants. The climate change committee has been inundated with different research. A Cabinet sub-committee on climate change and energy security is in place but we tend to forget the energy security issue. Ireland is at the end of a long pipe transporting fossil fuels, which leaves us dependent on everybody else in the chain being in supply in order that we continue to have a supply. Approximately 11 days of natural gas supply is on reserve. Following the winter we have had, it is not guaranteed that it could not run out.

It is all the more frustrating when the agriculture sector is undergoing huge change. There is serious uncertainty in light of the new CAP reform measures that will be introduced. There is volatility in supply of normal commodities but there is a potential to develop second generation production, which does not affect food production. The challenge is though land use to marry food production with the desire and requirement to produce alternative and renewable energy. The Common Agricultural Policy should be rechristened the common land use policy because in many ways the earth, the wind and the waves are the key to it. We can feed and give energy to our people. We can provide heat and light in their homes and fuel for their transport, if we do this right. Statistics are available and the number of people on the planet, how much they need to eat and how we can generate sufficient fuel and energy to accommodate them are not mysteries.

The EU, for instance, supports decentralised local production. Germany has 2,500 biogas plants. These are sustainable rural community initiatives. Dr. Gerry Murphy and others made a presentation to the joint committee about anaerobic digesters and they recommend that such plants be set up in local communities. They can serve a 5 km radius with local farmers producing grass to put into an anaerobic digester, which produces methane. They also use slurry which addresses two or three problems. It is an energy source. By transporting it to a digester and storing it, the nuisance of the smell of methane is eliminated. The product that results from the process is a fertiliser, which is more nutritious for the soil, thereby reducing the requirement for chemical or artificial fertilisers.

However, we are missing the primer to get everything going. The Minister is sincere about this but it is frustrating that there is no joined-up thinking. The Cabinet sub-committee has not put forward initiatives. The Bill has been introduced in isolation and it is not part of an overall picture. The 4.5% bio-fuel target was picked without putting an incentive or a carrot in place. That is the result the Minister wants to achieve but it will not be done in such a way as to allow the development of an entire industry and a resource much more effectively and without threatening people. All this will do is add to the cost of bio-fuels. The carbon tax could have been used in a different way so that an exemption was given to anyone producing fuel. I note the Minister is grimacing. We could fuel our bus fleet from methane gas.

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