Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I dtús báire, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach. Tá áthas orm go bhfuil an deis agam labhairt sa díospóireacht seo.

There was quite a bit of media fanfare about the new forestry strategy and while I welcome its publication, it amounted to only a single page dealing with payment rates. The previous strategy amounted to almost 150 pages and it will likely be the new year before that is available.

The draft plan is open for consultation until the end of the month. We are all on the same page on some elements of the forestry strategy. It is important that we get it right. There is a lot riding on it. Ireland's forestry cover is very low compared with our international peers. Only 2% is native woodland and that is among the lowest in the world. We are all in agreement that many jobs in rural communities rely on forestry. It is an understatement to say that forestry is an important sector in our economy. It is vital not only for our economy and society but also in environmental terms. Many of our carbon neutrality targets are riding on us getting the forestry strategy right. It am not overstating the case when I say how important it is that we get this right and point out the role forestry must play.

The main show in town is first and foremost reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the air. Our focus must be on reducing emissions. We must not allow ourselves to be sidetracked into thinking we can continue a business as usual approach and somehow compensation by forestry and other removals will get us out the gap. That is simply not correct.

We also cannot forget that the impact of forestry on emissions takes decades to be felt. For example, any changes in forestry today will have very little impact on reducing emissions by 2030. That said, emissions will continue to be released from hard to abate sectors of the economy and we will need forestry to compensate for those. It is important to note that the land use, land-use change and forestry or LULUCF sector, which is much easier to say, is currently a net source of emissions and we face a major challenge to reduce those. The Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action heard today about some of the potential for land use in reducing emissions.

Biodiversity is another environmental aspect to forestry. People often conflate the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis. They are not the same thing. They are two separate crises. Biodiversity is impacted by climate change but it can equally be impacted by climate action and it is important that we protect both and address both of those crises. For too long, forestry plantations have been a major driver of biodiversity loss, especially the mono-crop plantations of Sitka spruce. For this reason, it is particularly welcome to see the increased focus on native forestry in the document that was launched. There are higher payment rates for native forestry and a new rewilding payment. I would like to hear the Minister of State's rationale for setting it at a lower rate than the other schemes. I would also like to know why the space dedicated to rewilding is being limited to 50 ha per annum compared with the 4,645 ha of Sitka spruce monocultures.

The Government's publication has got it off the hook for the time being but we all accept that delays are threatening the sector's viability. There is a long history of administrative issues in the forestry sector. It is all well and good offering higher payment rates and establishment grants are welcome but there were underspends of €7 million and €8.9 million in forestry in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and more than 6,000 ha of licensed afforestation remains unplanted. Those figures indicate that the challenge in the forestry sector is one of confidence. The Government must address that issue as well.

There are still significant issues with applications for licences. I know the Minister of State employed additional ecologists when she came into office and that is welcome but we must do better at screening out the bad applications upstream so they do not cause delays downstream. I have figures for the soft licensing target, which show that 100 per week have been missed in 65% of weeks to date this year. The Government missed the target for 28 weeks and only met it for 15 weeks. Some 1,683 licences remain on hand for more than 120 days. Only 2,000 ha have been planted this year to date, while 2,016 ha were planted in 2021 and 2,435 ha were planted in 2020. The last time the State's afforestation rate reached 2,000 ha per year was in the middle of the Second World War.

Members will all remember the heated debates of 2020 as the forestry legislation made its way through these Houses. I warned then that the draconian reforms would not be adequate to address the problems in the system. As is the case in the planning system, it is not good enough to simply fast-track bad plans. We end up with a mess and do not achieve what we all say we want to achieve, namely, greater afforestation rates. We have the same issue with housing. When we try to block people's access to justice and fast-track bad plans we do not get to the root of the problem and it does not speed up the process. That is why it is so important to protect the right of the public to participate in the judicial process. Sinn Féin has a track record of seeking to amend legislation to strengthen public participation and bring greater clarity, especially with respect to those who feel existing afforestation has been detrimental to their communities. Until their concerns are addressed and the bad applications are weeded out far earlier in the process, we will continue to fall short of our targets.

Sinn Féin looks forward to working with the Minister of State because, as I stated, we are all in agreement that we need greater afforestation. We need it for our communities, employment and timber built houses but also to address climate change and the biodiversity crisis.

I apologise for leaving shortly. I have to attend another meeting but I will listen back to the Minister of State's responses.