Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My Department and I are aware of the need to decarbonise our economy and society. It is my view that we will need to exploit all opportunities and means of carbon abatement available to us as we seek to achieve very ambitious decarbonisation before 2030 and transition to a net zero carbon economy by 2050.

Officials in my Department have met representatives of Liquid Gas Ireland, a representative association for the leading suppliers of BioLPG to rural homes and businesses, and have been made aware of the abatement potential achievable from the use of biofuels. While home heating, transport fuels and their decarbonisation do not fall not within the policy remit of my Department, it is clear that a range of interventions will be necessary to achieve the level of abatement required. Government policy will need to support households and businesses to make cost-efficient choices to meet that ambition. We must, of course, do this in a way that meets the highest standards of sustainability. The EU renewable energy directive provides detailed rules for the application and administration of sustainability and criteria for greenhouse gas emissions saving to biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels.

Since 2010, increasing volumes of biofuels have been introduced to the Irish conventional fuel mix through a biofuel blending obligation on fuel suppliers. I am aware that the use of biofuels is already one of the main aspects of land transport decarbonisation and that the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, published a policy statement on renewable fuels for transport in November 2021. The statement sets out a roadmap for the supply and use of renewable energy in transport to meet Ireland's national commitments in Climate Action Plan 2021 and European obligations under the renewable energy directive.

My Department is working closely with stakeholders to equip businesses to take climate action, preparing themselves for our transition to a low-carbon economy and therefore making our enterprise and employment base more resilient. My Department received €55 million in EU funding under Ireland's national recovery and resilience plan to help manufacturing companies to reduce their emissions. To incentivise the early adoption and research of technologies to deliver on carbon dioxide abatement from manufacturing combustion emissions, funding under these programmes will focus on businesses using fossil fuels that can install new technologies leading to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

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