Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for that information. He said the strategy for the 5.7 TWh “will be agri-led, farmer-centric and will contribute positively to the sectoral emissions ceiling". It is great that it will be agri-led. We want it to be led by farmers and, in general, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is part of the energy thing but has to be led by that Department.

I did not get any information on where the pilot project in Grange by Teagasc is, nor did I get information or an update on the three farm-scale biogas demonstration projects funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine under the European innovation partnership scheme.

If the Minister wants to do the renewable heat obligation scheme in 2024, we need workshops for farmers and information evenings. Farmers are asking me questions. They want to know when they will be asked to do this. How do they learn about it, having heard about it vaguely? We need to upskill and educate farmers, and maybe bring them to sites where this already exists. Farmers want to do this. Why would they not want to produce their own clean gas, as opposed to burning fossil fuel gas from Russia or Ukraine? To have a scheme in 2024, we need to start now with getting Teagasc, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine or the Irish Farmers Association to run workshops for farmers to help them to set up these small-scale anaerobic digesters.