Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As a Deputy in a rural constituency, I regularly get representations from landholders who are very put out by the changes to the appropriate assessment. I understand the background to it but I think, at best, that one could say that the Department's response has been less than one would have expected. It should not be a surprise to the Department or the Government that we should have been making progress in setting the appropriate standards for afforestation. It has been known for a considerable period that it has a positive impact on carbon sequestration. Mr. Hayes has answered that but we need action. It is damaging in a number of ways. It is damaging for farmers who have got to a point where they are ready to plant, which he will be aware is challenging. They see it as placing their land outside their control for the rest of their lives, which is a big move for them. One can get farmers or others to do it and then they are seen to be blocked by the State, which is asking for it to be done on the other hand. I understand the reasons behind it but we need to be more proactive in going out to farmers, otherwise it turns off a swathe of people who say that they will not bother going through the entire process and spend the money, when it then may not happen. It also damages the industry and efforts to keep people involved in planting in jobs. They do not see the commitments or a future in it. Mr. Hayes has covered this but I wanted to make those comments.

Coillte has done a lot of good work over the years but over the past ten years, it started looking at its asset base. When it started to worry about selling off certain plots of land for building or getting into wind energy, that was all great because it is a semi-State company, but the company lost its focus to some extent.

The company looked at replanting rather than having an ethos of identifying more parcels of land and aggressively and broadening its footprint. Coillte should return to its core terms of reference of increasing our landmass covered by woodland because that has important benefits that probably were not envisaged ten, 15 or 20 years ago.