Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has just asked for tax relief for rural towns. The management of our woodlands is a rural activity. I do not like to take things out of the high income earners' liabilities, but there is a justification for this proposal. Most of the constituency represented by Deputy Tóibín is rural. It is hard for one to harvest forestry if one has to go back in for a second or third time. The tax restriction on this income has made it impossible for owners, especially farmers, to bring in the heavy machinery that is necessary to harvest in one go the trees of the same age that mature at the same time. When they have tried to do so, they have run into circumstances in which, after they have grown trees for 25 or 30 years, this income would become liable for the high earners' tax relief in a single year. That is the purpose of this change. If the Deputy thinks about it, he will appreciate that it is helpful to the economy of rural Ireland because it will encourage the further development of forestry, especially on those lands that are not really viable for much other farming activity.