Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Gray for her attendance and wish her the best of luck in her new role. I live in the heart of the Slieve Bloom mountains, or certainly in their foothills, in County Offaly and am well aware of the work of Coillte. I frequently use Coillte forests to walk and clear my head after a week in Leinster House. I am very interested in what Coillte is doing and in the co-operation between it and Offaly and Laois county councils in respect of the mountain biking track in Kinnitty. It is an excellent example of how partnership can work and it was great to hear additional funding is being provided for it and others across the country in a recent funding announcement. I see the use of the forest for recreational purposes as being of great advantage and it is marvellous that Coillte is not in any way preventing people from going into the forests for insurance reasons or whatever. People feel they have access to these woods and that they belong to us to an extent, even though Coillte is managing them. Another example is Scohaboy Bog, in Cloughjordan beside Sopwell Wood. That is a marvellous example of how Coillte is working on restoring a bog. Scohaboy Bog has a specific designation in terms of its importance. Working with the local community is really important there and it is something I like to see Coillte do.

I am curious about Coillte's relationship with the ESB. I presume we are talking about wind farms. We have a history of objections to wind farms in the midlands. We will not go into the reasons but there were a lot of objections.

Many of these objections and much of the climate denial were born from a lack of communication on the reasons we needed renewable energy. Will Ms Gray elaborate on how Coillte will engage with communities on this? Community engagement is very important. Bord na Móna is a model of how this can works well. It is a trusted State agency which engages really well with communities. Detailed engagement is crucial to get these types of projects over the line. Has Ms Gray explored this issue?

On the bioeconomy and woodland diversity, I note that one fifth of Coillte's planting is biodiverse. I do not know for how long it will be possible to sustain the current monoculture. Sitka spruce forest is very silent because there is not much life in it compared with what one would find in a broadleaf forest, for example, where a variety of different plants have self-seeded. Is Ms Gray considering increasing the percentage of broadleaf woodland to increase biodiversity? As previous speakers noted, the committee on climate action has given a great deal of consideration to what we need to do. Some of the committee's members are concerned about high levels of certain types of monoculture in certain parts of the country. County Leitrim was mentioned. We want to avoid that but at the same time we have responsibilities around the amount of planting we must do.

How much bogland is held by Coillte? I referred to Scohaboy Bog but there must be other bogs. Does Coillte envisage a role for the company in rewetting some of those bogs as part of our efforts to manage carbon reduction?