Greens to launch Carlow campaign

The Green Party is to launch a campaign to develop a bio-fuel refinery at Carlow sugar factory, which Irish Sugar closed last month as part of a rationalisation scheme.

The party will host a conference on bio-fuels in Carlow next Wednesday, at which it will outline the need for the development of a refinery at the former sugar processing plant.

Demand has grown in Ireland in recent years to make bio-fuels a priority in a bid to reduce reliance on the Middle East for oil and to replace fossil fuel.

Green Party deputy leader and local councillor Mary White said a bio-refinery would support local industry and create sustainable jobs.

“It would be a thriving new industry for Carlow and the south-east, which is a particular economic black spot,” she said.

Ms White said it would underpin a major part of the rural economy by supporting sustainable agriculture to feed a bio-fuel plant in Carlow.

“Fuel from Carlow farms would provide added income, employment and rural and urban prosperity. Never has the time been more suitable,” she said.

“Carlow has the land bank. Farmers are eager to diversify and the town is crying out for a dynamic new industry,” she added.

Ms White said there “Fuel from Carlow farms would provide added income, employment and rural and urban prosperity. Never has the time been more suitable,” she said.

“Carlow has the land bank. Farmers are eager to diversify and the town is crying out for a dynamic new industry,” she added.

Ms White said there was also the need to comply with the EU bio-fuels directive (2003), which states that these must reach 2% of all transport and heating fuels sold by 2005, she said.

Alan Banks, the chief executive of Losonoco, a bio-fuel plant operator, Teagasc’s Bernard Rice, the IFA Beet Committee’s Peadar Jordan and Carlow County Manager Joe Crockett will address next Wednesday’s conference at the Seven Oaks Hotel.