Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

These matters will be for national decision once the flexibility is there in the regulation. When the rural development regulation is agreed in the CAP reform, we must draw up a rural development programme. We are already engaged in a very extensive consultation process and we are undertaking an ex ante appraisal. We have already commenced work on the new rural development programme.

Ultimately, the Government must make policy decisions on what it will want to include in the rural development programme, including whether it will include forestry or fund it as it currently is nationally. It must also decide how much funding it will put into the rural development programme.

As Deputy Ó Cuív correctly notes, in the last rural development programme we put in not only the money required for the co-funding but also additional funding. That was subsequently cut back but nevertheless, additional funding was put in. The issue will have to be decided when we reach that point in the national decision-making process, and we are some way from that yet.