By Áine McCann

On 9th and 10th July, I had the privilege of representing the Gort Biogas Concern Group at the Mary Robinson Climate and Nature Conference 2026 in Ballina, Co. Mayo.

This year’s theme was “Food and Care: A Meitheal for Our Time.”

It was a particularly appropriate theme. The old Irish idea of meitheal was about neighbours coming together, sharing the workload and looking after one another. At a time when Ireland is making major decisions about energy, agriculture, food production and climate policy, that idea of working together — and listening to the communities affected by those decisions — has never been more relevant.

Bringing the Gort experience to Ballina

We were invited to participate by PhD researcher Niamh Donnelly, who many people will remember from our recent meeting in Gort. Niamh is researching the impacts of biogas development on communities, giving communities such as ours an important opportunity to contribute our lived experience to academic research.

We were joined by Moira from the Swinford biogas group, who has become a driving force behind the development of the National Biogas network of communities dealing with biogas proposals. Her knowledge and determination are extraordinary, and the exchange of information between communities is becoming increasingly important.

There was also an international perspective, Jullianne, from the Netherlands through Foodrise EU, an organisation working for food systems that are fairer and more sustainable for people, climate and nature. She went to Leinster House and presented a petition to the Irish Government.

Our contribution was simple: we told the story of Gort.

We explained what it means for an ordinary rural community to become involved in a planning process that continues for years.

We spoke about the original planning application, the subsequent decisions, the High Court proceedings and the remittal of the case back into the planning process.

But dates, applications and legal proceedings tell only part of the story.

The other part is the effect on people.

It is the countless hours spent reading planning documents, environmental reports and legislation. It is fundraising for professional and legal advice. It is attending meetings, writing submissions and trying to understand increasingly complex technical information.

And above all, it is the uncertainty of living for years with a major development proposal hanging over your community.

Who is responsible for policing the planning system?

One of the strongest points to emerge from our discussion was the burden placed on communities when they feel they must continually scrutinise the planning system themselves.

In Gort, we have repeatedly had to examine changes and additional information associated with the proposed development and question whether the environmental and planning implications have been adequately considered.

Whatever anyone’s view of biomethane as a technology, there is a much bigger democratic question here:

Should ordinary communities have to spend years of their lives and significant amounts of their own money testing whether the planning and regulatory system is doing its job?

By the end of our session, there was a much greater awareness among those present of why communities are raising these questions.

And importantly, this wasn’t simply a discussion about whether someone is “for” or “against” renewable energy.

It was about how we make decisions, who carries the consequences of those decisions, and whether communities have a meaningful voice in the process.

Food security changes the conversation

The conference theme also raised another question that deserves much more attention: where will the material needed to produce biomethane actually come from?

Ireland has committed to supporting production of up to 5.7 TWh of indigenous biomethane annually by 2030. Reaching anything approaching that scale will require a substantial and dependable supply of feedstock.

That brings grass and silage directly into the conversation.

This summer has given us a very visible reminder that agricultural resources cannot simply be assumed to be available indefinitely.

Prolonged dry conditions have severely reduced grass growth, particularly in the south and south-east. Farmers have had to supplement grazing animals, including with silage that would otherwise form part of farm fodder supplies.

When grass is scarce, food and fodder production must surely come first.

So we need to ask an important question before building an industry that could require large quantities of agricultural feedstock:

Has the proposed Irish biomethane model been adequately stress-tested for the climate conditions we are increasingly likely to experience?

What happens during prolonged drought?

What happens when farmers need their silage to feed cattle?

What happens if less food waste becomes available because businesses successfully reduce waste through better environmental management?

And if those feedstocks become scarce or more expensive, what happens to the economics of the plants built around assumptions about their availability?

These aren’t arguments against renewable energy. They are questions about resilience.

A genuinely sustainable energy system has to work not only in an ideal year, but in difficult years too.

Sustainability has to mean more than renewable energy

There is an important development here.

The Government’s own Biomethane Environmental Sustainability Charter, published in 2025, now specifically identifies sustainable feedstock production, plant design and operation, digestate management, and community and local engagement as key principles.

That is significant.

It acknowledges something communities have been saying for some time: calling an energy source “renewable” does not remove the need to examine its wider environmental and social consequences.

We need to consider land use, water, biodiversity, traffic, emissions, food production, feedstock availability and the effects on the people living beside these developments.

Sustainability cannot simply mean producing renewable gas.

It has to mean that the entire system is sustainable.

A meitheal must include communities

That is perhaps the biggest message I brought home from Ballina.

The Mary Robinson conference deliberately brought academics, farmers, environmental organisations, policymakers and community groups into the same conversation.

That matters.

Because Ireland’s transition to a lower-carbon future cannot simply be something designed at national level and then imposed locally.

Communities such as Gort are not obstacles to climate action.

We are stakeholders in it.

We live beside the developments. We know our landscape, our roads, our farms, our water systems and our communities. And after years of engagement with this particular proposal, local people have accumulated considerable knowledge of the planning, environmental and regulatory issues surrounding large-scale anaerobic digestion.

A meitheal works because everyone contributes and everyone matters.

If Ireland genuinely wants a sustainable biomethane sector, then the same principle should apply.

Good climate policy needs good planning. Good planning needs proper environmental scrutiny. And a just transition needs communities to be heard before decisions are made — not after the consequences arrive.

Our thanks to Niamh for inviting the Gort Biogas Concern Group to Ballina, to Moira and our fellow community representatives for sharing their knowledge and experience, and to everyone who listened to the Gort story.

After several years dealing with this proposal, it was important to take that experience beyond Gort and put it into a wider national and international conversation. (We will be back in Leinster House in October to meet the Government)

 Biogas video_Mary Robinson Climate and Nature Conference 2026

And if the theme of this year’s conference was A Meitheal for Our Time, perhaps that is exactly what is beginning to happen: communities sharing information, supporting one another and making sure that our voices are part of Ireland’s environmental future.