Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Further to Deputy Flanagan's point the timber industry representatives said that the key issue was to expand forestry, that this would deal with the price issue. What is IMPACT's view of that? It seems obvious to me that for various reasons we need to expand the amount of forest cover in this country which is very low by European standards. What does IMPACT see as the obstacle to that expansion? Is it just lack of public investment? If so, what do the witnesses think could be done to remedy that? We discussed one suggestion earlier, which several people have floated, that we should go to the European Investment Bank and look for money to expand public forestry. How does IMPACT see forestry expanding?