Mr. Joe O'Carroll:

First, I shall address the Chairman's question on whether anything can be gained from the strategic review that needs to be factored into the Bill. It is impossible to answer his question until we see what comes out of the strategic review. However, I shall make a broad statement. It has been some time since we had a Forestry Bill. The legislation has been eight years in the making and it is six years since consultation. Therefore, my personal view is that there is no massive urgency on pushing the Bill through until we have seen the strategic review which is more imminent. Once we see it, and gain a better understanding of the vision for the industry going forward, we can then work on a Bill that will give enabling powers to the Minister to exercise and achieve that vision.

The single biggest issue and challenge facing the forestry industry at present is mobilising the private forest industry. The State and private growers have invested billions of euro into creating a forest resource. A lot of it is now mature but it is very slow to reach market.

Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned ECC in Corr na Móna and the other sawmills that are always crying out for additional volume. My own business, Imperative Energy, develops bioenergy facilities around the country and constantly faces difficulties in getting sufficient volume to support its development needs.

The potential for job creation and creating economic activity in the private forest industry must be built on to the mobilisation of the private forestry asset. That is why we need a strategic vision for the industry and a supportive Bill that will help grease the tracks to get that material to market and then economic and social benefits can flow from such an initiative. The Bill contains very little to grease the tracks and is more about imposing barriers and constraints on the industry.

Senator Mary Ann O'Brien and Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned the management plan. Again, the wording of the Bill very much suggests that everything will be written, that the Minister will write seeking a management plan and the forest owners will be obliged to submit a management plan.

We are in the digital age and have a very modern forest industry. It is nonsense in this day and age for anybody to put pen to paper, as Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív said. What we need is access to inventory information. Timber is not like an annual crop and we need to know what is growing. Most people who grow wheat do not really know what is there until it is harvested. The position in the case of forestry is slightly different in that we always need to know what is growing. All forest owners need to capture this data and they should be made available centrally to enable us to look at the sustainable harvest across the industry. We have no problem with information being made available, but it should all be in a digital format and inventory data. There is no need for verbiage. We have a number of small Irish companies, Tree Metrics being one, a former winner of an innovation award from the Society of Irish Foresters. They are shaking up the global forest industry in terms of forest measurement, stand optimisation and resource management. It is that type of technology we should be using in the forestry industry, but none of that modernisation is envisaged in the Bill, as drafted.

The other development in the forest industry not envisaged or facilitated in the Bill concerns the diverse ownership structure. There is a separation of ownership of land from ownership of the growing stock. The chances are that the growing stock will be owned by funds, or it could even be managed by Coillte or other entities, separate from the person who owns the land and the folio. None of these developments is envisaged in the Bill and they need to be taken into consideration. In summary, we are putting the cart before the horse. We need to know what the vision is and need a Bill that will enable us to achieve that vision.