Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. There is no doubt that forestry has a central role to play in carbon mitigation by virtue of its sequestration properties. It is, therefore, critical to any climate action plan. I note the three pillar approach based on reducing emissions, increasing carbon sequestration and displacing fossil fuels by renewable resources. We are talking about 11% of the total land area and the Minister of State is aiming to have 8,000 ha planted every year. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, we were talking about 10,000 ha per annum. We have, therefore, regressed. We cannot come within an ass's roar of 8,000 ha of new forestry each year. The current figure is approximately 5,700 ha per annum. It is no wonder there are many issues.

The Minister of State indicated that the translation of approvals into actual planting is the critical aspect, and I agree. It is critical, as Deputy Martin Kenny stated, that forestry is located in the correct areas. It is a little like the wind turbine craic where the boys arrived in town with their chequebooks and overnight they were placing turbines all over the place, with no care for the community. The land scheme should be aimed at farmers. One sees what happens when it all goes wrong. It should be farmer orientated.

The Forest Service is not well. The ash dieback issue has not been handled well and there is much distrust and anger out there. A presentation will made to the committee later, which I will quickly read through. It is not good if people are not happy, as the Minister of State would acknowledge is the case. He has some forestry on his land. How are we to achieve objectives and targets if people are unhappy? The rate of forestry has declined significantly in recent years. It was higher when I was first elected to the Dáil.

The thinning grant is of no use to farmers because it does not compensate the owner for the financial loss he or she is experiencing. Thinning grants are just a management tool. They are great if one is young, fit and able bodied but they do not cover the cost of having the timber cut and brought to the roadside. Most contractors require the full grant and felled timber as payment.

On ash dieback, allowing ash growers to enter a new scheme or remove their ash plantations and return their land to grass could be feasible if there were no loss to the grower. The disease was imported into Ireland at a time when little attention was paid to the fact that it was rampant in Europe. Where were the protocols? Where was the biosecurity screening?

There are many issues with the replanting of areas of ash plantations with conifer plantations. The minute one starts to do this, one becomes bogged down in bureaucracy, red tape, excess costs and the usual crossing of t's and dotting of i's. I was talking to a top-class hurley manufacturer, Mr. Peter Curran, in Cloghan, which is in my constituency. Mr. Curran was a good hurler and, like many others, he is now making hurleys. Sourcing ash butts for hurleys is difficult. The hurley manufacturers are bearing the brunt of the ash dieback problem, even though they are not at fault. They did not allow the disease into the country. The Minister of State has a wide brief and will have good knowledge of this area. In the course of the CAP negotiations, will landowners be allocated a budget in acknowledgement of their contribution to biodiversity and wildlife habitats, an issue the Minister of State addressed? These farmers are dealing with the most organic land in the country. There is no recognition given to careful stewardship. The Minister of State and others who sow know that.

We often look across the water to see how things are going. Is Scotland reaching its targets or is there a model there that we could learn from? It is important to examine what works well elsewhere to see if has potential applicability here.

I have to ask the Minister of State something I was asked a few weeks ago. Are tree sapling plants of different species being imported and approved for new forestry plantations? I am not an expert in this area. If they are being imported, are we putting in place appropriate protocols and security measures to make sure we do not experience further problems? What percentage of root stock is imported each year for the forestry sector? If the Minister of State is trying to achieve the targets he set out, does that mean root stock imports would increase? It may well be the case that we could provide that here. It was brought to my attention that there is an invasive bark beetle knocking around in the United Kingdom which could affect conifer plantations, especially through importation for processing. The Minister of State will know more about this sector than anybody. It involves the guts of 12,000 jobs and €2.3 billion to the economy. We were talking about the EU-Mercosur trade agreement in terms of the agricultural sector but imagine if the forestry sector was hit again. Perhaps that might be worth examining.

I read the points made in the Minister of State's submission regarding the reconstitution scheme. I have also read the presentation the Limerick and Tipperary Woodland Owners have submitted. I also have no expertise in this area. Approximately 16,000 ha of land were restored and approximately €4.5 million spent before the scheme was suspended. A review of the scheme has been 12 months in gestation. My grandmother - may the Lord have mercy on her - used to say that long churning makes bad butter. This butter must be getting rancid. I hate these reviews. The Minister of State will recall from his time as Chairman of this committee that I can be cantankerous when discussing reviews because they take too long. What is the Department reviewing? What is going on? Did the reconstitution scheme work? That is the basic question. Where did the money that was given to the Department go? Did the €4.4 million all go to the register of foresters or to sales? Were sales required to cover the cost of reconstituting the ash plantation?

Have any farmers who should have been compensated not received compensation? Is there an underspend in the forestry industry each year? If there is, surely we should redirect some of that money to farmers who have sustained significant losses as a result of ash dieback. The disease seems to be particularly prominent in two or three counties.

Who was involved in the creation of the reconstitution scheme, which may have preceded the Minister? Was there a high-level stakeholder committee, or were any Members involved in it? I always like to find out whether many stakeholders from the industry in question are involved in such committees. The Minister of State has referred to the industry but when that industry is hit, it hits the small people. It does not affect the big boys at the top who are dictating to others. Who was on that committee? Were they foresters, consultants, sawmill or nursery owners, contractors or representatives of Coillte? Were individuals who had been hit on it? How many people on the committee were typical, average forest owners? The Minister of State is probably wondering why I have a particular interest in this area. My uncle, Lord have mercy on him, was a forester for about 40 years, so I am interested in it. The Minister of State makes his own decisions and will not take any advice from us, but the best advice I can give him is that if he intends to conduct any more reviews, he should put together a forestry stakeholder committee made up of ordinary, typical private forest owners in order to get their views on the schemes he is putting forward. Those 9,000 or 10,000 ha should be planted in order to achieve carbon sequestration. A number of farmers might consider doing that if there was an increased premium involved. Those ordinary forest owners might be able to tell us how to get there.

I refer again to hurling. A few years ago, a plan was set out with the intention of achieving self-sufficiency in hurley butts by the end of 2019 and a 70% reduction in hurley butt imports. Are we going to meet this target? The production and manufacture of hurleys has created 600 jobs in rural areas. People are involved in this industry right across the country, from Canning Hurleys in Galway to Curran Hurling in Westmeath. That is important. The Minister of State has done some work in this area, for which I salute him. In 2018, hurling was declared a form of intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. How will the Minister of State rectify the loss of our native ash trees and commercial ash plantations to ensure we comply with the awarding of cultural heritage status to our national heritage and national sport?

We need to support forest owner groups, including with transition. I have always supported Coillte but it is not doing enough to meet its forestry targets, and I said as much to its new chairperson, Ms Bernie Gray from County Longford, when she was before this committee. Coillte has failed to meet its targets and all sorts of excuses are being put forward for that. If the company is failing to meet its targets, we should import the bare minimum and ensure small farmers and small forest owners are supported because their contribution to biodiversity is absolutely critical at this point in time and will serve us well in the future. I ask the Minister of State to address some of those issues.