The bio-energy event held recently at Teagasc's Oak Park estate in Co Carlow was a huge success and fulfilled its function as a showcase for the many options on the use and production of renewable energy.

But there is a definite undercurrent of unease around, especially among the business people who are trying to sell alternative heating systems to the general public.

Despite all the seminars and the huge sums spent on trying to interest the public in environmentally-friendly home heating systems, there is still that air of uncertainty about the entire business.

This is not the fault of Teagasc, who hosted the event, or indeed of the event itself, but when you cut through the façade of glossy brochures, seminars and promotional literature, you still get the feeling that there are a lot of unanswered questions and somehow farmers are perhaps being used as guinea pigs in an experimental trial of new heating systems and fuels that maybe do more to boost the egos of individuals in the various government agencies than to actually deliver exciting, new and viable systems.

One farmer I know has recently spent €300,000 installing a plant to convert oil seed rape into fuel and high-protein animal feed. This plant currently lies idle and he tells me it will remain so until the various government agencies and bodies that administer our numerous grant schemes for bio-fuels can coordinate their activities and produce a workable scheme.

The reasons this new plant is currently non-viable are complex, due to the bewildering range of tax rebates and schemes that are apparently available to some but not to others. It would take a further thousand words to try and explain them. However, one of my friend's chief complaints is the fact that he has to deal with six different government departments which, in his words, "all appear to have a different approach, with little or no co-ordination between them".

At Oak Park, I also met the head of one of our largest alternative fuel companies, who were one of the first to invest in the business of supplying and installing wood chip burners and guaranteeing to also supply the fuel. He told me that, despite a sizeable capital investment in staff, equipment and a promotional campaign, they have installed so few chip burners around Ireland in the past 18 months, that they have yet to see a return on this investment.

An engineer who lives not far from my home told me that he imported a wood pellet heating system direct from Germany for less than the cost of the same system if purchased in Ireland and benefiting from the Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) grant. Clearly something is wrong here. But SEI just plods on regardless.

There have been major difficulties in sourcing Irish wood chip and pellets, and these problems look set to continue. Many pellet users are burning imported fuel and this, of course, makes a nonsense of the entire Greener Homes scheme. Demand for wood chip is negligible during the summer so huge stockpiles of chip are necessary to cope with the winter peak demand.

A further difficulty with some of the systems in use for burning wood chip and wood pellets is their mechanical complexity. The man who services my Aga cooker (a cooker that is a model of simplicity) told me that, while helping one individual install a wood pellet heating system, they noted it had 130 moving parts. He laughed and said that guaranteed him plenty of work in future years.

Compare the task of keeping those parts serviced and functioning to the simplicity of a log gasification system, which is a highly efficient and cost-effective log burner. It was heartening to see many log gasification boilers on display.

One such system only needed to be fuelled every second day and was able to take large logs, which are perhaps the cheapest fuel available -- especially to farm foresters. But, of course, SEI in their wisdom refuse to grant aid these systems, an approach which would appear to be both anti-farmer and anti-forestry.

It is hard to comprehend why anyone would go to the trouble and expense of chipping or pelleting a log that is already perfect to use as a fuel in its original form.

There are a large number of studies being carried out on the viability of the different uses for wood and other farm-grown bio-fuels. Many of these studies will not have results until well into 2008 at the earliest and their authors will then report to the multiple government departments who presumably will then finally report to Minister Eamon Ryan, who currently heads the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

To make the minister's job easier I would like to make the following suggestion. Headhunt Michael O'Leary from Ryanair and put him in charge of bio-energy. This would probably herald the demise of the endless conferences

More importantly, it would save the Irish taxpayer many millions, as I am sure Mr O'Leary would immediately streamline the agencies and departments that are burying us under a mountain of paper.

Perhaps then would we see the emergence of a thriving, profitable and sustainable bio-energy industry for Ireland.