Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

I am aware of the group. I also have a degree of sympathy in the sense that I believe the previous Government, of which the Minister of State was not part, did very little on this. The new biomethane group was set up. However, I would like the Minister of State to answer the following. When will the regulatory framework be put in place? What are the timelines on it? She has not told us. Second, in regard to planning, every county development plan in Ireland says something different on this. I have gone through a few of them and they say totally different things. How is that right? How can a national strategy be implemented spatially, and there is a spatial element to this given the nature of our agricultural country, when there actually are no planning guidelines? We need regulations in relation to a whole range of different things such as emissions and noise among others. However, we also need spatial planning. There is a tariff required here for how things are going to operate. None of this is done, and yet we are expecting local authorities to process planning applications on this in isolated rural areas where massive industrial plants will be put in place. It is nuts; it is crazy; it is bananas; it is just stupid.

I support this technology, but I want to see a plan where we know spatially and geographically where we need to put all of these, what size we need to put in each place, what tariff will be in place to make it economically viable, and what type of waste is going into all of these plants. We need to do so through a regulatory framework that exists, an economic framework that is viable and planning guidelines so that local authorities are not looking at this and saying they want to do the right thing from a climate change point of view but they literally do not have a clue or any guidance on it. I know the new Coimisiún Pleanála has basically said it needs advice from the Government in regard to the gas plant proposed for liquid gas in Foynes. Something similar needs to happen here. An coimisiún also needs to tell the Government in this regard that it cannot make decisions unless regulations and planning guidelines are in place.

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