Bord na Móna pledges to create 300 new jobs in 'green' projects

STATE-OWNED utility Bord na Móna has said it will create 300 new jobs across the organisation over the next two to three years.Chief executive officer Gabriel D’Arcy said yesterday the new jobs would mainly be in green technology operations.

Mr D’Arcy said the company is investing €7 million in developing mechanical and biological treatment systems for biodegradable waste such as wood and plant cuttings at its facility in Drehid, Co Kildare.

The materials produced there are used in fertiliser products such as moss peat, which it sells in Ireland, Britain and in other markets.

According to a sustainability report on its activities which it published yesterday, Bord na Móna plans to invest €300 million in “green businesses” over the next five years.

Mr D’Arcy said the jobs would be created over the next two to three years. “We hope that the majority of them should be within the next two years,” he added.

The jobs announcement came as Bord na Móna reported that it made operating profits last year of €23.8 million, an increase of €1.3 million on 2007. Sales were up 8 per cent at €401.6 million.

The company paid €12.9 million to its shareholders. The State received the bulk of the cash, but employees, who own 5 per cent through a share option trust, were paid a total of €645,000, which means that it was worth on average just over €300 to each of the option scheme’s 2,100 members.

Bord na Móna was originally established to manage and exploit the Republic’s peat bogs, but has been branching into alternative energy and waste management in recent years as it will have to wind down peat production over the next decade.

It is building wind farms with the capacity to produce 500 mega watts of electricity – enough power for 160,000 homes.

Earlier this year, it emerged that the company had a €45 million deficit in two of its pension schemes. The trustees and the company began talks with workers, pensioners and deferred beneficiaries in a bid to solve the problem.

Mr D’Arcy said yesterday that the talks were continuing in relation to the two schemes. The members of one were considering firm proposals, while the other was at what he described as a “slightly earlier phase”.

Bord na Móna owns waste management firm AES and is continuing to seek other sources of green waste that can be used at Drehid and biomass for use in its Edenderry power plant.

In late 2008, it began talks to buy the Irish waste business of French operator, Veolia, but no deal was done.

Mr D’Arcy said yesterday that the company was on the lookout for other such deals. “At any time we are looking at a range of opportunities across the full spread of businesses that we are in,” he said.