Mr. Michael Fleming:

Yes. I wish to make it clear to Deputies that farmers make a contribution. They are tying up the land for life, forever. There is an incentive for 20 years and that is important because they have no source of income for the first 20 years when they are taking on the commodity. They are committing their land forever and they have no level of compensation for the second rotation or whatever. It is a once-off payment. The value of that land will be greatly reduced once it enters forestry.

Deputy Ferris raised the fact that we have not reached the target of 7,000 ha of planting. That is quite correct. This year we reached 6,200 ha, last year we reached 6,500 ha and year before that 6,250 ha. As we said in our initial statement, forestry works on confidence. There was an 8% cut on premium in 2009 and that certainly dented confidence.

Another aspect had a major bearing on the matter as well. In 2009, the Department reduced the premium for marginal land from approximately €99 per acre to €65 per acre. In 2010, the Department came back and put an arbitrary 20% figure on the amount of ground it would allow through the system. In other words, a farmer had to plant four acres of a good field to get in one acre of marginal land. This had a major bearing on the figure as well. It is probably not the entire explanation of why we are not achieving our figure, but certainly it had a major bearing in the reduction and why we are not getting our figures.

We must look forward and consider 2020 and whether to grow other products, perhaps dairy, beef and sheep. That will have to come out of the good land. We must give our marginal land consideration. If the land has the productive capacity to grow timber and it is not tripping up any environmental constraint, surely we must consider planting the land.