Results 1-20 of 595 for speaker:William Aird

Men's Health: Statements (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: I welcome the opportunity to speak on the important topic of men's health, an issue that touches every parish, home and family in Ireland. Today's debate is a milestone for the House. It is the first time that men's health is the sole focus of statements in Dáil Éireann. Often, men's health is discussed when it is too late, such as when a neighbour is ill, a farmer collapses or a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: I welcome everybody here today. It is important that we have people like them here because we always have to hear both sides of the story. I spend most of my time now going to public meetings where there are proposals to put in large windmills, triple the size of what people were ever used to. The witnesses are correct and right when they say most of the windmills, because the size of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: Yes, it would lose money. I have to say, in Ireland, we need a lot more discussion about this. If the witnesses do not mind me saying so, when I was being reared as a little fella, we tried to produce enough food for the cattle for the whole winter and there was always be a time coming into the spring when you could feel the tension in the house if the weather was bad and we wondered...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: I have a few more seconds so I might ask one more question. If they cannot be fed with everything that was supposed to go into them, what happens then? Do we start importing boatloads of stuff from other countries? The reason I am asking is that they ran out of grain in Germany. We have a huge problem here. Right now, grain farmers are the poorest section of farming in this country....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: The way the witnesses are talking, they seem to be thinking there is going to be an influx of this. They are expecting a lot of applications in. Would the timeframe for it not be sooner rather than later?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: How much approximately are they getting each? Does it depend on the size, that is, the grant they are getting?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: Is it a maximum of €5 million?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: I presume there has been an awful lot of studying done on this. The planners in local authorities depend on the Department to send out guidelines because they are not used to this. They will be looking for guidance. In the Department's vision, do the witnesses expect to see a lot of these in single farms?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: If we use the example of a town of 15,000 people - I do not want to go big - in the Department's vision, does it see one of these somewhere in the vicinity of that town?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: These will be allowed to be work all year around. We will see the farmers drawing the slurries into these during the winter. Is that what the witnesses are saying?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: They will be selling the manure back out to the farmers.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: If a model is set up that cannot sell back, what do they do with the waste that comes off it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: We will say that farmer does not want the stuff back. When it comes out at the other end-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: There will be a lot more than farmers. Will there be dead meat? Will knackers go out of existence now? Will all of the cattle go in there?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: Will dead animals go in there?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: What cannot go in there?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: As a farmer, could I bring slurry into it if there was one beside me?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: When they talk about bringing in grass, maize and everything like that, is that the company buying it off them and doing a deal?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: In regard to a town with a population of 20,000 to 30,000, can the witnesses provide me with any guidelines to tell me how much land they have to take in order to feed that? Will they be out actively in the community taking land to feed it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Anaerobic Digestion: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Oct 2025)

William Aird: Does anyone have an answer to that? I would like to know. I live in the growing town of Portlaoise. It has over 30,000 people. If there is one of them in Portlaoise now, would the people running that have to be going around and taking land in order to feed it because they would not be getting-----