Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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288. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the future EU plans in relation to biofuels for cars and tractors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29331/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Under the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive, all Member States in the European Union have each been set binding targets of 10% of the energy in transport to come from renewable sources by 2020. Ireland will meet this target mainly by achieving significant increases in the use of biofuels with the increased use of electric vehicles also contributing a small percentage to the target.

The Renewable Energy Directive specifies a set of sustainability criteria that must be applied to biofuels, before they can be counted towards a Member State’s renewable energy in transport (RES-T) target. Under these criteria biofuels may not be made from raw materials originating from tropical forests or recently deforested areas, drained peatland, wetland or highly biodiverse areas. However, the Directive currently does not account for Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC), where the growing of crops for biofuels may impact on land use change elsewhere. A draft directive proposing amendments to a number of existing Directives including the Renewable Energy Directive to counteract the possible effects of ILUC is currently being progressed.

One of the proposals of the draft Directive involves placing a limit of 5%, in energy terms, from biofuels produced from certain feedstocks that Member States could use in meeting the 10% target. Another proposal is to incentivise the production and use of certain other biofuels produced from feedstocks such as wastes, residues and non-food materials by allowing these biofuels to be counted more than once towards the 10% target. It should be noted that, in 2012, around 55% of the biofuel placed on the market in Ireland was produced from wastes such as used cooking oil and tallow.