Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Jupp. Deputy Kerrane and I attended a meeting in Rooskey regarding forestry. There are outages in that area coming from trees falling. We are not playing with the trees. The problem is that there is no proper setback distance from ESB wires. As incoming chair, will Ms Jupp get involved and give an undertaking because families with children and elderly people were left without electricity for a week at one stage? Could Coillte lay down on its policy document that it is set back 30 m either side of wires so we do not have this because a tree will grow to 75 ft or 80 ft? Obviously a spruce tree does not have the roots of some of the other trees that would be grown. This has to be done on the private and public side. You cannot have the ESB constantly having to fix wires because of that. This is one thing I would ask Ms Jupp to take up in her role.

The second issue is pressure on land. Coillte are using investment funds when it comes to buying up land. It is behind the door. The investment fund is buying it, it will come into its ownership after while and farmers are in middle. We have a problem in different parts of the country where landlord Ireland is nearly coming back. Coillte needs to work with farmers and communities and not bulldoze on top of small farmers.

In fairness to Coillte, I would have dealt with the local people with regard to walking trails through the woods and they have been excellent. If there is a problem, Paul Ruane, Declan Garvey and all those guys in that area work with the community. Funnily enough, there seems to be a deafness higher up in Coillte when it comes to making sure that policy and working with people is sorted.

Many years ago, we brought Coillte before us regarding the farm partnerships. It has been a problem. A lot of promises have been made in here over the years about sorting this out. Between mediation, legal letters and everything else, a lot of people are still not sorted. Whatever has to be done to cut to the chase and make sure this is resolved needs to be done.

Coillte came before us and told us a lovely story about how it was committing to "X" amount where it had pine up on peatlands. Ms Jupp spoke about it earlier. The reality is that the first application in Connemara has been turned down by Galway County Council because it is a special area of conservation. There are 250 ha or 300 ha on which trees are growing but they are now being refused permission to even cut them even though it is a peaty area. This is because of the habitats directive. How does Coillte reckon it will get to this figure bearing in mind that it is saying that it will increase output or planting and will decrease the areas if it gets the go-ahead? How does Coillte square that circle?