Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We must consider matters such as this holistically. We plan to spend €3.8 billion to boost the transmission system so as to facilitate plans for industrial wind farms. This affects people in the midlands, but there is also major concern about and opposition to the proposal to build one of the world's largest wind farms on the Kish bank in Dublin Bay. Conversely, it is estimated that it would cost approximately €380 million to convert Moneypoint, just 10% of our planned spend. It is true that there is not enough biomass in the country to fuel it, but it is also true that the largest coal-burning plant in Britain was recently converted to biomass and has found a source of biomass to supply it at a fixed, reasonable cost.

There are strong arguments to the effect that biomass is much better at helping countries to meet targets. We would need to expand our biomass capacity indigenously, but it is important to note that Coillte has a significant amount of land that could be developed to expand biomass. According to the McCarthy report, 500,000 acres of its land are not being used to grow trees.

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