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

As an Opposition spokesperson who intends to table amendments to the Bill, I am listening carefully to submissions and keeping all of the documents presented to us. When I have received all of the submissions, I will examine them and consider amendments they may suggest. Some of the amendments will be contradictory and I will have to decide which ones are worth pursuing, either to extract information from the Minister or because I believe the Bill should be changed.

Mr. Breathnach made a number of interesting suggestions. In regard to the policy review and annual report, it appears that the Minister does not need further powers to propose or review policies because the core function of a Minister is to set out policies. We will be told that the suggested amendment is superfluous to the Bill. Every Department is obliged to prepare annual reports and strategy statements. Mr. Breathnach's suggestion that they do not provide sufficient detail may be valid.

I will have to think long and hard about the proposal on planting targets. This is legislation, as opposed to a plan. If legislation is to be tight enough to be enforceable, it could also be so tight that it creates legislative difficulties.

My belief is that taking Coillte Teoranta out of new planting in the past ten years was the biggest cause of the reduction in planting. It had all of the capability to do this job efficiently and effectively. It had a large forest holding, the know-how and the financial ability to do the job. It takes a long-term investment. There has been ideological opposition to the State investing in anything in the past ten or 15 years. If that had existed in previous generations, many of our very good semi-State companies and State companies would not have existed.
We all agree about the amendment of the plans. I will follow up on that point. The witnesses are correct about fees, which only ever go up. The other point made is that there is no significant cost to the Exchequer. One must always watch the small print in respect of Government documentation. Charging fees to cover the cost means there is an appropriation-in-aid in the Department fund and one does not need to get the money from the Exchequer. It did not refer to there not being a significant cost but that there was not a significant cost to the Exchequer. There is a subtle difference between the two. I expect that is where fees come in. We will watch this.
We have gone mad with plans. Plans are getting more and more detailed. They are filling up rooms and we are knocking down trees to beat the band to print out all the plans. I often wonder whether anyone reads plans. People prepare a plan because the law says there must be a plan. There must be a pro formaplan and the details and facts but the writer and the person for whom the plan is intended pay no heed to it in the reality of business. How much money, time and effort has been wasted in this? I see this in respect of REPS. Everything has just become paper, paper, paper.
In the Department, we used to spend hours, days and months on the strategic statement of the Department. I asked officials in the Department how many kept the strategic statement of the Department on their desks as an everyday tool or used it to answer awkward questions about what the Department does. Other than that, some 95% of those in the Department never referred to it again. It was handy for answering questions but they did not use it for day-to-day management. If we used the time spent writing the document managing the Department in a proactive fashion, perhaps we would have been better off. I am not against planning but I am against pro formaplanning. Much of it is done to satisfy a legal requirement, not because the planner believed this information was needed for a strategic plan. Many plans have more detail than commercial planners would include. I would be interested to hear the view of Senator Mary Ann O'Brien, as someone who is involved in a significant commercial operation.
I agree with the point about the registration of a burden on the folio. Replanting is a big issue and needs input.
I like what the witnesses said about timescales. The public are often tied to timescales. Appealing a decision of the Department of Social Protection must be done within 28 days and something else takes 14 days. However, there is no timescale coming back except in planning. Where there is an eight week limit to provide an answer, it works very well and effectively. I am not giving hostages to fortune by saying that if there are timeframes in one direction, I will demand they apply in the opposite direction. Otherwise, there will be no timeframes.
We have already met the Department in respect of the Statute of Limitations. This is a valuable point. I have come across situations where genuine cases have been passed by the Department and eight years later they say that they measured incorrectly and come back looking for the money. No banks will bank if they think that this could happen. It is an important point. Unless there was a purposeful effort to defraud, there should be no retrospective claim. If the Department passes the application for a grant, it should have checked it. Maps may be wrong. Ecological areas can be re-examined in the case of people who acted in good faith and it totally undermines bank confidence in the business. I note what was said about enforcement.
Regarding land availability, I had a connection many years ago with the timber industry. The area I live in is hugely dependent on the timber industry for employment. However, there is a competing use of land issue and much marginal land is ruled out because it is ecologically important. We are moving into better and better land, which gives much better yield when planted. There is competition with agriculture. I have a huge interest in the timber industry and the timber mill in Corr na Móna needs 350,000 tonnes of timber a year. The big five timber mills have been extraordinarily resilient in bad times. Having said that, the dilemma is that every hectare in timber is a hectare out of agriculture. The Chairman has been particularly exercised about the land use issue and he is dead right. We have a big job to do on land use to decide on the competing interests for Ireland. They are not making land any more and, over the past month, much of what we had has become aquaculture rather than agriculture territory. The issue needs the examination proposed by the Chairman.
The witnesses' theme is valid, namely, that anything that creates uncertainty, such as retrospection in penalties or changes in grants, undermines confidence and we cannot expect people to plan, particularly if they are borrowing money, if there are too many uncertainties or variables in the equation. People will not be prepared to fund it. We must examine this point in the context of the wider debate on forestry if not in respect of the Bill.