Mr. Gerry Ryan:

Earlier a Deputy asked how much land is not used in the production process and I replied that 20,000 ha are not used. Some of that land is used to provide amenity and tourism facilities for local communities. An outstanding example, which the Chairman will be familiar with, is the Lough Boora Discovery Park in County Offaly. It is an extensive area that is comprised of 3,000 acres of restored peatland. It provides a huge tourism amenity in that part of County Offaly and in the midlands in general. In the past year we constructed a visitor facility at the site. Recently, the Irish tourism industry awarded the site the title of the best environmental initiative in the tourism industry in the past year. We are very pleased with the award. It is a tremendous site which attracts between 60,000 and 70,000 visitors per year, half of whom were from overseas and half of whom were from Ireland.

In addition, we have a number of other projects around the country. Another example is a 400 acre site in Abbeyleix, County Laois. Together with the local community, we have developed it into a tourism and amenity site. If members are down in that direction, it is located on the old Cork Road and is south of Abbeyleix. The local community has also constructed a walkway at the site in recent times. There are a number of instances of that type of activity across our land bank and sites and across the country. Even at facilities, such as the Mount Lucas wind farm, we have constructed a wetland and tourism facility. It includes walks or walkways and a visitor centre will be constructed at the location later in the year.

I can assure the Deputy that we are very interested in tourism and in exploiting the potential of our lands for eco-tourism and other types of tourism activity. In fact, that is one of the work studies which is currently the subject of discussion between ourselves and Coillte. We are carrying out, for example, a feasibility study on the construction of a cycleway network to link up the Coillte and Bord na Móna sites and other relevant sites located in the midlands.

In terms of north Kildare, we have been in consultation with one of the communities that is located close to the northern end of the site, where the Drehid landfill is located, about amenities in that particular area. We are always interested in tourism. We have a number of initiatives which are literally ongoing every day in that area. If anyone has ideas in that regard we would be very glad to discuss them and to deal with them, as best we can.