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Dáil
‹ Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation

Flooding and anaerobic digesters

Summary

Deputy Stanton linked recent flooding to the need to accelerate climate action and asked about Government policy on anaerobic digesters. The Taoiseach agreed adaptation must be sped up and said climate adaptation would need much greater focus.

Given the recent devastating flooding in east Cork and other parts of the country, would the Taoiseach agree with me that it is important to expedite climate change issues right now? In that regard, what is the Government's policy regarding the construction of anaerobic digesters which remove methane from farm waste and make it available as renewable fuel to be added to the gas grid in certain locations?

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Leo Varadkar The Taoiseach Fine Gael

I very much agree with the Deputy. The recent flooding events in Midleton in Cork and around the country reminded us, if we needed to be, that we need to accelerate climate action but also that we particularly need to accelerate adaptation. Climate change is a global problem that we can only make a very small contribution to changing, unfortunately. However, adaptation is entirely within our hands now. We need to increase our focus on adaptation over the coming years and we will. It is about much more than flood relief; it is about other things as well. The Government is very ambitious about anaerobic digestion. We have not seen the kind of progress we would like to have seen to date. We are very keen to encourage and support farmers and the industry to invest in this and produce biogas for our grid, which we do not currently have.

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