Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the representatives of IMPACT. The trade union has made a significant contribution to this debate. I congratulate it on its commissioning of the Bacon report which has been of great assistance to us, having been prepared by a reputable person. As Mr. Staunton said, the position is farcical. The committee is halfway through a number of hearings on this issue and last week the Minister informed the Dáil that a decision would be made within a fortnight. That means the decision will probably be made at next Tuesday's Cabinet meeting. Therefore, this is probably the last meeting at which we will have an opportunity to discuss the issue. It is important to state Fianna Fáil is totally opposed to this sale. I have personal experience of the timber industry because I was involved in setting up a timber mill many years ago. As the person who set up Comhairle na Tuaithe and brought the various players around the table on the issue of rural recreational facilities, it a totally retrograde proposal to sell the harvest crop. A total of 45% of way-marked ways pass through Coillte lands. In many cases, Coillte also provides the access to the uplands, the mountains. Its record has been excellent in making sure its properties are available to the public. It has also organised its harvesting activities to minimise the discommoding of the public in gaining access.

The Minister's announcement has made this debate somewhat unreal. If the Government makes the decision next week to sell the forest crop, before the committee has had a chance to complete its work and submit a considered report, it will be outrageous in terms of the new system of politics in place. It is difficult to carry on business as usual today.

I endorse what IMPACT had to say. I was involved in organising and facilitating the briefing it gave to Oireachtas Members. I have had a long association with Mountaineering Ireland, through Comhairle na Tuaithe, and I also have had an association with timber mills. I have no financial interest in any timber mill but I was a co-operative manager and a paid employee of a timber mill which was supplanted by ECC Teoranta, one of the big five mills in the country which provides 200 jobs in my locality. I know the impact it and all the other mills have on their neighbourhoods.

I congratulate IMPACT on producing a report which, on analysis, speaks for itself. There is no return here or no cash here but there are huge downsides, some of which are not so calculable. However, if one tried to put figures on them, the negatives far outweigh the positives. Will IMPACT confirm the following? If private interests acquired the forests, they need not ensure they put enough timber on the market to keep all the timber mills going. If bidders from outside the country bid for the timber to export it in log form through one of our ports, a private seller would go for the biggest bidder and would have no regard for the many jobs at stake throughout a whole chain. A timber mill is not just a saw mill. Some 50% of what a saw mill produces is either chip or bark. The bark is all reprocessed by different processors and the chip all goes to chip board mills. In the case of ECC Teoranta, I understand it is going to use it to replace heavy oil in Ballaghaderreen to produce animal feedstuffs and to run the dairy plant there. We could do a bit more by using our timber to develop even more products.

Is it the case that many jobs depend on this and that it goes way beyond the direct primary processors to secondary processors and so on? What is the potential for jobs if we hold on to this crop and make it available in a planned uniform way and if we look at what the mills have been doing and add further added value to our timber products by developing even more sophisticated products? Much has been done in the past ten years but we could go another stage into secondary processing.

I find this debate a little surreal. All I hope is that all the members of the committee, as they have done at previous committee meetings, reiterate that we are opposed to this sale and we believe it is foolish. I am half afraid the Government will make a headline decision next week that it is against the sale or that it does not propose to sell but I am worried there might be a sting in the tail and an instruction to Coillte to sell parts of the forest crop or part of the forest itself and that there might be some unforeseen other way it will try to raise the cash through this particular asset. We must be very wary about that.

If there was such a proposal, since IMPACT has done Bacon I, it would be important to get a Bacon II very quickly, especially if the Government said that instead of selling the crop, it would sell some of the commercial parts of the plantation lock, stock and barrel. Is IMPACT concerned about that? Would it be able to produce a report quickly if that was mooted? I would prefer if it was a plain "No" because I always worry about a "No, but". I would be very afraid about the "but".