Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Government on being able to remove Coillte from the list of State assets that the previous Government agreed were to be sold. This decision was not only welcomed by me but by the thousands of my constituents who wanted our forests and their lands to remain in the ownership of the State and its citizens. Our forests do not only provide wood but immense pleasure to millions of people. More than 18 million visits are made to our forests every year which, incidentally, is almost two thirds the number who take a Luas journey every year.

I welcome this long promised Bill which will replace the Forestry Act 1946 but I must express my concern that it has taken so long. I understand that consultation with the stakeholders first started on this Bill in 1998, 15 years ago. In 2005 a consultative group was set up to consider the 26 submissions made. After eight years of further consultation we now have this Bill before us. I hope that the new Oireachtas procedures for tabling a Bill can do better than this. I wish to acknowledge the efforts of our former colleague Shane McEntee in bringing the consultation process to a conclusion and I congratulate the current Minister of State, Deputy Tom Hayes, on bringing his first Bill to the House.

Towards the end of the 19th century Ireland's forests had been reduced to about 1.5% of the total land cover or 125,000 ha. State involvement in forestry began in 1903 when the then Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction acquired Avondale Estate in County Wicklow and established a forestry training unit. Forestry growth has been a stop-start progression since with two world wars taking a heavy toll on our forests. The Forestry Act 1928 that empowered the Minister to compel the replanting of felled areas was a significant step in stopping the slide of forestry into oblivion. At that stage in the late 1920s there were only 89,000 ha, less than 1%, of forestry left. However, during the Second World War when timber and fuel were again scarce, planting levels fell and subsequent planting was mostly to replace trees felled during the war.

The Forestry Act 1946remains the primary forestry legislation. To complement that Act the Government introduced an afforestation policy of planting 4,000 ha of trees per year and the first long-term afforestation programme was adopted in 1948. Happily, annual rates of afforestation continued to rise up to and through the 1970s but this level could not be maintained due to difficulties in acquiring suitable acreage. By the 1980s the rate of afforestation began to fall with the annual average rate of afforestation dropping to 5,700 ha.

In the late 1980s the Government changed the way it managed its land portfolios and the Forestry Act 1988created Coillte Teoranta, the much-maligned Coillte as we have heard from the previous speaker. In his contribution in which he mentioned fraud, robbery, TVs being stolen and people breaking into houses I do not think he ever mention reporting it to the Garda. A commercial private body with a number of functions including timber production, provision of forestry amenities, protection of the forestry environment and community engagement, Coillte is the largest landowner in Ireland in that it now owns and manages more than a million acres. The purpose of setting up Coillte was to improve efficiency in the forestry industry while allowing for critical monitoring by Coillte.

The Forest Service is responsible for setting national forest policy, control of tree felling, protection of the national forest estate from pests and disease, promotion of forest research and development, promotion of private forestry and administration of the State forestry grant.

Under the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Forest Service promotes sustainable forest management, SFM, as a central principle of Irish forest policy, whereby forests are managed in a way which maximises their potential and which is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable for present and future generations. The Council for Forest Research and Development, COFORD, was established in 1992 and its role is to co-ordinate forest and forest-product research in Ireland. COFORD achieves this with financial support provided by the Forest Service.

Although an afforestation grant scheme has existed in Ireland since 1930, private afforestation was very limited until 1981 when the European Union set up and funded a special grant-aided afforestation programme. By the mid-1980s private afforestation started to increase. With financial assistance from the European Union, the State introduced further afforestation programmes and private afforestation increased rapidly to a peak of 17,353 ha planted in 1995 with a total of 23,710 ha of private and public forestry planted. Unfortunately, we have again witnessed a significant decline in new forest plantings since, with almost all new plantings being undertaken by private growers.

Ireland has a target of covering 17% of the land mass in forestry by 2030 but we need to move quickly and efficiently to reach that target given that we are not even reaching 50% of our annual targets. If we were on target we should have 870,000 ha of forestry but we have only 744,000 ha. We need to create an additional 20,000 ha per year while we are planting only about 6,500 ha which means we will not reach our 2030 target until 2070 or 2080.

We are all aware that the decision by the European Commission in 1999 and subsequently upheld by the European Court of Justice that debarred Coillte from claiming afforestation grants has stagnated growth in the forestry sector and that private landowners have been trying to make up the shortfall. We need is a new impetus to promote growth in the forestry sector. To remedy the situation we must create a new investment vehicle that can attract European Union grants and match that with the management expertise of Coillte. Today I ask the Minister to examine the possibility of the State creating a special purpose vehicle or entity to allow citizens to invest in a forestry development company managed by Coillte. This could be a very productive partnership for all concerned in that it would allow for European funding through grant aid again to allow the expansion of the forestry land cover, increase employment and reduce carbon emissions.

I pay tribute to the work of Coillte in expanding the business by taking over some of the manufacturing plants for wood products and creating new markets for Irish wood products.

Much greater consideration needs to be given to the neighbours of our forests. We need to consult with those living beside forests particularly when areas are about to be planted or about to be felled. As I stated earlier over 18 million people visit our forests every year but I would like to see that figure multiply many times in the coming years. We need to encourage more people to visit these wonderful and spectacular areas and encourage a greater sense of ownership in order that our forests are never again under threat of being taken over by foreign investment cabals. We do not need to see those who caused many of our economic problems profiting by it.

We need to create more designated and signposted walks and cycleways. We should encourage and allow for more adventure parks to be created in our forests. They attract millions of extra visitors to the forests in England, Scotland and Wales. We should also ask the Forestry Service in conjunction with the National Parks and Wildlife Service to examine the facilities provided by the National Parks Service in the United States.

I call on people to consider visiting their millennium forests. These trees were planted in the 17 designated areas right around the country at the turn of the century. These trees are now taking shape. It would be a good idea if the Minister was to update the millennium trees website with up-to-date photographs of these now maturing forests and encourage all our citizens to visit their millennium forests and trees.

I hope the forestry sector will grow dramatically in the coming decades similar to our millennium forests. I believe the Bill is a step in the right direction.

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