Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I know that Mr. Carlin said earlier that for legal reasons he cannot comment on this. I am not asking about the legal aspect but why it is taking so long for arbitration to go ahead with regard to partnerships where there are problems. At our last meeting here, we asked if there were legal issues with the certification of the farm partnerships. We were told that there were not. The information that we have is that 20 legal letters were sent to Coillte by a Dublin law firm. Will the witnesses comment on that? While we got this two years ago when Coillte representatives were here, will the witnesses provide an accurate figure for the area Coillte has in circulation at present when the area used for wind farms or LIFE aid are removed? My understanding is that there is not any. Some of Coillte's areas, such as Galway with Paul Ruane, do good projects and are very helpful. When Coillte is trying to work with the community in certain areas, the legal side can be very slow in getting agreements made. Can that be improved? As the witnesses touched on with Deputy Cahill, what happens where ash dieback has happened in a partnership and it has to be taken out?

Ash probably costs €50,000 an acre at its prime. Why are we putting in alder? Why are we not putting in beech or something if an area is able to grow ash? Why are we putting in a less valuable crop?

Much has gone on regarding environmental objections in a particular case, although I understand it is not Coillte's fault. Will this mean a serious amount of money even for ordinary people who are planting because they will have to get an ecologist's report, an environmental impact assessment and all of this? How much of a backlog will that cause?

Moving on to discuss the people in the farm partnerships that our guests mentioned, I would like the following clarified. Did our guests say that Coillte has given €17 million in premiums? My understanding is that the Department pays the premiums.

Coillte has made a quite substantial profit and I congratulate our guests on that. When a profit has been made and things are going fairly well, why have we not tackled these partnership problems, rather than heading for the courts, in some cases, and arbitration in others? Why will someone not try to put a bit of a head on this, so to speak, and try to resolve it once and for all? Coillte will probably have to use legal people. Ordinary people who went into something in good faith will also have to use legal people. Is it not crazy going to court?

In their opening statements, our guests said that Coillte had gone to the people, or partnerships based on management agreements, and that it is working with people the whole time. Coillte has admitted that this was not the case, going back years, and that there were major problems. Our guests also spoke about replanting.

Turning to bogs, Ms Hurley talked about carbon sequestration. What does one acre sequester in a year? What does an acre, or a hectare, sequester in a lifetime? Others who were before the committee did not give such generous figures as those our guests spoke about today.