Mr. Mark Carlin:

We are looking to do this in two ways. One is through more traditional commercial afforestration. Grants and premiums will make this much easier to do because we do not have lands and must foot the bill for acquiring lands. Grants and premiums put us in a position to do a lot more.

As Ms Gray mentioned earlier, it would cost €15 million to do 4,000 ha but it would be done for much less, between €8 million and €10 million, if grants and premia are involved. We can do a lot more planting if we can acquire more land with grants and premia. However, we are also considering contributing to afforestation using a non-commercial approach through Coillte Nature. We will start by looking at 1,500 ha of Bord na Móna lands. There are 15,000 ha of cutaway bog so this is an initial step in that regard. We need to consider what else we can do. As this is not Coillte land, we would need to work with the Department and Bord na Móna. There are other potential State lands.