Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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The town of Thurles and mid-Tipperary have lost a great number of factories and employers over the last 30 years. All the stakeholders have been making efforts and are working hard to reverse this trend. Only last year we secured the national apprenticeship centre which is located in the town and there are over 250 apprentices based on the site today. Our small and medium enterprises are showing initiative to drive forward despite the difficulties. These include OMC, an engineering company based in Thurles which was founded and driven by mid-Tipperary business people, and Dew Valley Foods, a processing company, which is also a significant employer.

An opportunity now presents itself to Thurles and mid-Tipperary which requires the support of Government and Government policy. Lisheen, just outside Thurles, has been designated as a national research centre for the bioeconomy.

Thanks to the research of Professor Kevin O'Connor and his team at UCD, and the pilot work done by Glanbia, there will be a biorefinery on the site in a relatively short time. This is just the beginning. The research happening at the site has the potential to turn the waste from the agricultural and agrifood industries into high value, globally traded commodities. The resulting jobs and supports connected to that can be a game changer, not just for Tipperary but for development in rural Ireland as a whole. The energy from the bioeconomy will be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th, and we in Ireland are ideally placed to capitalise on it.

The site at Lisheen is perfect in many ways. It is flat, it has scale, it has high voltage electricity and green energy available and it has a water supply that matches the size of the site. However, one piece of the jigsaw is missing, namely, connection to the national gas network. This can be solved at relatively small cost. If we consider the benefits to the State which I have outlined, it will be an investment that makes a return to the State of a magnitude never before seen. If this final part of the infrastructure was brought to Lisheen, the site would immediately be attractive to the pharmaceutical and food industries, or a mixture of the two. It would fit all the criteria required for a hub for the international data centre industry. It would be a shining example of how to create rural development and could be recreated throughout the country.

If Lisheen was connected to the national gas network, with a bioeconomy focus on the site, it is easy to see the biogas industry being attracted. This could help to achieve the national target of 30% of all gas used in Ireland coming from biogas by 2030. The biogas used at Lisheen could be pulled back into the national gas grid and, given this potential payback, it is easy to justify the investment. The gas network can be connected to the Lisheen site from Cashel in County Tipperary. This would have the added benefit that the shortest route runs adjacent to Thurles, which is the nearest urban centre to the Lisheen site. Lisheen would be the anchor tenant and would justify connecting Thurles in the same way Tipperary Co-op did for connecting Tipperary town, the Goodman factory did for Cahir and Arrabawn did for Nenagh. As Thurles would provide the role of urban support to the fully functioning site, which would ultimately have hundreds of employees, it is only sensible that Thurles be connected to the network as part of this project. That would have the effect of supporting existing industry in the town and would also make the town attractive for new industry of all kinds.

A number of steps must be taken to progress this project. First, a robust feasibility study must be carried out as soon as possible and this study must have input from the Departments of Communications, Climate Action and Environment and Business, Enterprise and Innovation. It must also include input from Tipperary County Council, which is passionate about the project. The study must include all of the aspects of climate change that the project can benefit. This study can be done for €90,000. With the feasibility study done, it will be possible to make an application for funding to Project Ireland 2040 as early as next September.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I am sure he knows the way this works. Gas Networks Ireland is a commercial State-sponsored body and is regulated by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU. The CRU has developed a network connections policy, under which industrial users, towns or groups of towns within a region can make an application to be considered for a connection. The criterion the regulator sets is that the net present value of the revenues over a 25-year period must exceed the net present value of the costs of the connection. I gather, from what I am told within the Department, that the last time the Tipperary region referred to by the Deputy applied was more than ten years ago and, at that stage, Thurles did not qualify for a connection. Since then, the system has evolved in that groups of towns can apply, so if there are connections with Lisheen that might add additional payload, those can be included.

Gas Networks Ireland would need a proposal to come forward with various payloads and the need for energy and gas usage from industrial users and from towns. Clearly, it cannot assume that just by providing gas, everyone will connect, given there is a connection charge and also the cost of adjusting one's own heating system to a gas system. It has to conduct this study. As I said, the area in question has not made an application in ten years. If the businesses that are developing in Lisheen have a gas requirement, that can be added as part of a submission, which would be evaluated under the connections policy the CRU has enunciated. Gas Networks Ireland would then apply that.

Based on what the Deputy outlined, I do not know which industrial users are in the area. Gas Networks Ireland does not provide speculative extension of the line without having an indication that the demand is there, which is natural, given it is a commercial user. There has to be the establishment of demand and there would have to be projects coming on stream and approved, whether by Enterprise Ireland, the IDA or Teagasc. That is the system.

My Department is examining whether there are other dimensions, such as environmental dimensions, that could be a top-up to simply looking at the pure net present value. I understand a report will come to me shortly with an evaluation of that. That report will consider issues such as the carbon savings that might accrue and whether the net present value criteria are taking those into account. However, the overall approach is as I have outlined. Whatever the local promoters of the various initiatives are suggesting, whether it be biogas or otherwise, those will have to be developed to a point where they are close to approval as viable projects before Gas Networks Ireland could be in a position to supply its system. I am trying to be as helpful as possible. Of course, applications to the climate action fund or the disruptive technologies innovation fund can be of a more innovative type. Where there are innovative initiatives coming forward, those could apply to the climate action fund, where they would be looked on based on their value in respect of carbon impact.

Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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I am encouraged by the Minister's reply. Ten years ago there was no Lisheen site adjacent to Thurles and no bioeconomy centre there. The biorefinery has got serious funding and has got the largest ever grant from the EU. That biorefinery will start on the site next year with a capacity to deal with 50,000 tonnes of lactose whey. Tipperary County Council is very enthusiastic about the potential of the Lisheen site and what it can do. Sustainable food production will be the byword of the 21st century. Given the research going on into the Lisheen site and the fact it is a bioeconomy centre, I have no doubt the usage will be there.

I ask the Minister that the feasibility study on the potential of the Lisheen site and the gas connection, which the county council has asked for, be undertaken. We reckon the cost of the study would be €90,000. I ask him to arrange this feasibility study. I am confident in the extreme that he will recognise the significant potential of this site and the Thurles area. Glanbia has bought into this biorefinery. The location is at the heart of the agrifood industry, with Arrabawn, Dairygold, Tipperary Co-op and even Lakelands in the vicinity, as well as numerous meat factories. The waste coming from those can be used in the bioeconomy to produce valuable commodities that can be traded commercially.

4 o’clock

The potential of Lisheen is immense, and because Thurles is adjacent there could be a twin project to connect it too. This could be a template for rural Ireland and rural development. The Minister could give us the money to do the feasibility study. We can prove that the usage will be there and the connection will ensure that this bioeconomy site thrives in the future.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy probably needs to consider the connection policy because it sets out the framework that needs to be fulfilled. This includes identifying the businesses that will potentially use gas and their scale - there are concessionary rates for connection charges where there are small and medium sized enterprises, SMEs; and identifying the new estates that might come on stream that would use it and other towns along the route that might connect in. Gas Networks Ireland, GNI, is not going to undertake an assessment of these. This is based on projects that are coming forward, enterprises identified that are about to be approved or supported by the Industrial Development Authority, IDA or Enterprise Ireland. When those enterprises are identified and have a demand for gas then GNI can assess whether that will be connected. Neither GNI nor the Department go speculatively looking to see if they could create a demand for gas. That is not the way the system works. This has been regulated by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU. The emergence of new biorefinery activities with a gas demand will trigger an application to the connections policy and provide the opportunity to pass the test applied. It does not lay pipes in advance in the hope that industries might set up. That is not the approval system. There has to be a baseline of work to justify the investment it makes. It is a commercial company and that is the way it has to operate under its regulations.