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

I have praise for everyone who fought to keep our forests public. This does not mean that all is rosy in the Coillte garden. There are concerns about Coillte, its objectives and the fact that it has failed in the area of afforestation. I imagine the company will give reasons and justifications for that but when the largest owner and the public owner of our forests has not assisted in our reaching our targets and, consequently, we have fallen far short of them, then the matter must be addressed. There are many other questions relating to objectives, priorities, governance, conflicts of interest and the sale of some public forests, all of which need to be examined. We cannot properly address the question of Irish forestry without bringing Coillte into the frame.

The Act that established Coillte predated the Rio declaration and the principles of sustainable forest management that are supposed to inform this Bill as well as our approach to forestry generally and that is a problem. It is problematic that we are dealing with this Bill at a time when the long-promised review of Coillte has never materialised. It was never published, it was started and abandoned somewhere along the line.

There is something of a veil of secrecy around Coillte. It is insulated from proper scrutiny and accountability. For all these reasons we believe it is imperative to have a review of the Forestry Act 1988, which is out of date in so far as it informs the position of Coillte. We have moved on to Rio and all of the things that flow out of the declaration. Therefore, Coillte must be brought into that frame. We need a review of Coillte to inform proper forest policy in the country.