About
Maurice Ryan
Maurice has worked within Green Belt developing business opportunities specifically designed for farmers and landowners who wish to plant new forestry. Green Belt have been involved in over €30m of investment into Irish land and forestry since 2013. Maurice has nurtured strong relationships with HNWI’s, Institutions and private land owners interested in this area of investment. Allied to this, Maurice is developing areas by adding value to forestry portfolios beyond the traditional – pioneering growth and diversity through addressing climate issues and carbon emissions. As part of his current role, Maurice is promoting FACT investment, this initiative creates clusters of semi-mature forestry in nationally strategic locations to service end markets including sawmills and biomass facilities.
Ger Crosse
As a Commercial Director of Woodco Renewable Energy, Ger overseas biomass boiler sales over the domestic and international market including UK, Europe, USA, Canada and New Zealand. A founding member of the company he plays a central role in shaping the company strategy and global footprint.
Ger brings 20 years experience in the renewable heat sector, and he is a long term advocate of bioenergy for decarbonising heat. He is Vice President of IrBEA making him an authoritive voice on the Irish and UK biomass market.
Paddy Phelan
Paddy was appointed Manager of the Carlow Kilkenny Energy Agency in September 2012. CKEA is working in partnership with local authorities in Carlow, Wexford, Galway and Kilkenny to implement energy management programme which hopes to achieve 33% reduction in energy consumption. The organisation works with the local rural development bodies to deliver sustainable community development projects for the region and enable large energy consumers and renewable energy developers to finance and implement projects which will facilitate reaching renewable energy 2020 targets and beyond. Paddy has been member of IrBEA for 5 years and currently sits on the management committee. He also sits on the board of IWFA, AIEA and brings a wealth of experience to the Association. We welcome him as our new Vice President.
Des O’Toole is a Director at IrBEA and he also leads the strategic development of the Irish wood markets within Coillte, with a focus on promoting and leveraging Coillte-branded wood through processors to end-market consumers. He builds and maintains strong relationships across the industry, supports the development of new markets for home-grown timber, and works to strengthen the overall value chain. Des also provides market intelligence and analytical support to the business and leads a range of group strategic projects. All his experience lends extremely well to providing support to IrBEA. All of this experience lends itself extremely well to providing ongoing strategic insight and support to IrBEA.
Prior to this role, Des served as President of the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA) from 2017 to 2020.
Padraig O’Neill is a consultant with EnviroValue and a long-standing contributor to the IrBEA, where he currently serves as a Director and previously acted as Secretary for many years. Over more than a decade, he has made a significant contribution to the Association and to Ireland’s renewable energy and bioenergy sector. His work at IrBEA has focused primarily on biogas and biomethane, alongside a strong interest in biofuels. Padraig played a leading role in chairing the biogas and biomethane members’ group and was actively involved in lobbying efforts and in helping to shape policy development in this area.
Follow
Follow
