David Norris (Independent)

I would like to start on a positive note. I went to Clonakilty, County Cork, a few days ago after the business of the Seanad had concluded. I was driven to meet some transition year students who had completed a couple of remarkable projects. One beautiful girl had assessed the gender-based differences in taste regarding perfume and scent, etc. She tested them very scientifically in a blind test and came up with what turned out to be the formula for Chanel No. 5. This interesting and fun project might also have some degree of commercial application. Much better than that was the project undertaken by a group of young women of approximately 15 years of age who had spotted a local difficulty, the efflorescence of sea lettuce, which is a form of seaweed that had accumulated in the local bay. When it made its way onto the shore, it dried out and stank. They isolated this problem and examined it. When they collected the material in question, they discovered they could treat it and compress it to create briquettes. It burned for twice as long as peat and gave the same heat value.