Mr. Gerry Loftus:

I shall respond to the first question on agroforestry. What Mr. Spellman has said is close enough to the right idea. The INHFA totally disagrees with short-term payments. The agroforestry scheme lasts five years and is a bit like the afforestation programme overall. We have told here today that 4,000 hectares were planted last year, which surprises me. The scheme is just a land grab because one gets paid for 15 years but ends up with nothing, which is what happens when one plants Sitka spruce. At the end of that scheme, if one wants a felling licence to fell one's timber, one must agree to replant the land and pay for it oneself. That is how good the Government is at conning people in this country, and that has gone on for quite a long time.

The agroforestry scheme is a five-year payment. One can fence off the land but ten years must elapse before one can allow an animal to graze on that land. The conditions of the scheme insist that trees are planted about six metres apart and one cannot graze the land for ten years. One is paid for only five years so what payment does that land produce for the next five years? It produces nothing and from there on the land is taken up with trees. The INHFA suggests that if we are serious about tackling climate change and truly want farmers to participate in these schemes, they must be paid indefinitely, and whoever is their successors must be paid indefinitely. Fewer than 4,000 hectares will be planted in forestry next year because the people of the west of Ireland are sick of the scheme. A beautiful county like Leitrim has been wiped out, communities have been wiped out and rivers are being polluted. For what? So we can milk cows?