Mr. Gerry Egan:

There were two sets of questions from Deputy Ferris earlier about replanting and so on. There are two aspects to this. First, Coillte is not in receipt of any grants for afforestation and, second, there were never any grants for reforestation. As somebody else correctly pointed out, the replanting is funded from the proceeds of the sale of the original crop which is why the issue of the funding of the replanting obligation in the future is one of the seven issues Mr. Gunning identified earlier.

To return to Senator O'Brien's question about the margins and the level of dividends the company pays, the company is in a very capital intensive long-term business. Essentially, every euro of free cash the company generates is reinvested in the business for the future but last year we were able to pay a dividend of €10 million. This year, we have already paid a dividend of €2 million. In response to Deputy Barry's question, the total dividend paid by Coillte to date has been €12.6 million.