Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the publication of this policy statement. I believe climate change mitigation, the promotion of rural employment and driving economic development are all crucial policy objectives and outcomes. However, there is one particular prerequisite to building the bioeconomy which the policy skates over, although, to be fair, it does mention it, namely, enhancing the supply of domestic clean energy sources. This is not only desirable from the perspective of energy security, but is also key to tackling climate change. The national planning framework contains only vague aspirations which give very little clarity on this matter. The plan states that there will be energy research funding into solar and biogas. These are already well established power sources worldwide. We are past the research stage; we need to use them. We need to be very specific about what energy sources will replace fossil fuels. The phasing out of peat is an aspiration, but there is no plan about what will replace it. If it is biomass, we need to plan to promote the indigenous growing of biomass to become an industry in the midlands to replace the peat industry. Currently, Bord na Móna imports biomass from across the globe to burn with peat. Why is this not being adequately promoted in Ireland?

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