Mr. Gerard Murphy:

There is a fundamental issue involving land availability for forestry. Irrespective of who does it, there is a question of how much land is becoming available. On the one hand, there is increasing resilience in agriculture, and on the other there is, rightly, the matter of environmental designations in respect of enclosed lands. Traditionally, forestry would have been a matter of the latter. The availability of land is driven by economic factors in agriculture but also by competing land schemes. There are also socioeconomic factors to consider in respect of persuading farmers to lock into forestry for a long period. Coillte getting involved itself would not magically release more land into forestry. It is much more an issue of land-use policy and strategy approaches to encourage afforestation.