Skip to main content
Normal View

Food Security

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 10 December 2013

Tuesday, 10 December 2013

Questions (301, 302, 318)

Maureen O'Sullivan

Question:

301. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in view of comments made that Irish biofuel is from waste material and that we do not use any food crop in its manufacture, if his attention has been drawn to the inaccuracy of this statement since, according to the National Oil Reserves Agency 2012 Annual Report on the Biofuels Obligation Scheme, Document No: 457-X0098 Rev 2, September 2013 (details supplied), all of the 38,522,508 litres of bioethanol used here were from food crops, maize, sugarcane, wheat and about one tenth of that, 3.8 m litres, from Guatemalan sugarcane, such that 45% of the biodiesel used in Ireland in 2012 came from food crops; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53056/13]

View answer

Maureen O'Sullivan

Question:

302. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if his attention has been drawn to the fact that biofuels undermine food production and food security; if he will commit to Ireland supporting a 5% cap at the 12 December meeting of EU energy ministers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53057/13]

View answer

Maureen O'Sullivan

Question:

318. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will meet the Department of Foreign Affairs to discuss the serious issue of biofuels undermining food security and food production; if they will commit to Ireland supporting a 5 % cap at the 12 December meeting of energy Ministers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53058/13]

View answer

Written answers

I propose to take Questions Nos. 301, 302 and 318 together.

The 2009 Renewable Energy Directive sets all Member States a binding target that 10% of the energy used in the transport sector must come from renewable sources by 2020. In all Member States, biofuels will be the largest contributor to meeting this obligation and all biofuels used in doing so must comply with a strict set of sustainability criteria. The Government shares the concerns expressed that biofuel production and its use, unless properly regulated, may not deliver the required greenhouse gas savings and could impact negatively on food production and on food prices. My Department has been in regular contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, on the issue of sustainability and land-use implications of biofuels, including food security and food production.

In light of these concerns, during discussions on the European Commission's proposal to address the risk of indirect land-use change (ILUC), Ireland has argued for a restriction on first generation biofuels that can contribute to the 2020 renewable energy targets and for incentives to encourage the development of advanced biofuels that do not affect food production. Our preference is to see as low a cap on biofuels with a risk of ILUC effects as is realistically achievable in order to mitigate the potential conflict between biofuel use in the EU and land use in the developing world. Ireland will re-emphasise the importance of these concerns at the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting taking place on 12 December.

As regards biofuel use in Ireland, based on figures provided by the National Oil Reserve Agency (NORA) to my Department, over 16 per cent of the biofuel used in 2012 was produced indigenously with the remainder imported from a number of different countries. Currently, there is only one biofuel producer of scale in Ireland and it produces biodiesel from waste materials, such as used cooking oil and tallow. It produced over 99.75 per cent of the indigenously produced biofuels placed on the Irish market last year. One other Irish producer produced a small amount of biodiesel from rapeseed.

Table 2 of the Biofuel Obligation Scheme Annual Report for 2012 produced by NORA provides a breakdown of the biofuel placed on the Irish market since the sustainability criteria were fully applied in 2012. It also sets out all the countries from which the biofuels were sourced.

Question No. 303 answered with Question No. 300.
Top
Share