Richard Bruton
Question:1299. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the current level of biomass activity. [38269/23]
View answerMonday, 11 September 2023
Questions (1299)
Written answers
Biomass covers a wide range of materials and processes, including purpose-grown energy crops, forest thinning, waste material and timber by-products. My Department supports the development of the biomass sector by providing a range of supports for the growing of biomass supply and wood mobilisation, in respect of which supports are included in the new Forestry Programme 2023-2027.
Each year the Central Statistics Office carries out a number of surveys related to forest and wood removals. One of these is the Wood Input Purchases by Industry, which is based on data collected from the 2021 Wood Inputs Survey. The survey was designed to capture information on purchases of roundwood and non-roundwood forest products from forests in Ireland. As part of the survey, roundwood that is purchased to be used for energy purposes is recorded. For 2021, the roundwood for use as biomass was estimated at 622,000 cubic metres based on the latest available information from the Central Statistics Office.