Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I appreciate him facilitating me and I will be brief. The rate of afforestation in the county of Cork has gone from a high of 14% per annum down to somewhere around 4%. I would like to hear from Coillte, perhaps not now but in writing, how it will address that massive decline. Munster is seeing a collapse in planting, relative to other parts of the country. I would be grateful to receive correspondence in respect of the corporate strategy to address that issue.

On a similar vein, we are now seeing the increased use by citizens of Coillte estates for leisure purposes. Covid has highlighted the importance of forestry. To be fair to Coillte, it has done a tremendous job in terms of opening up its estates and making them as user-friendly as possible. If we are talking about afforestation and moving away from sitka spruce, it would be greatly welcome if there was a strategy and policy for areas, such as those in my own area in north Cork, including Rahan, the Ballyhouras, the Nagles and the Knockarowra mountain outside of Mallow, where we were seeing piecemeal improvements in terms of road infrastructure, pathways infrastructure and mixed-use forestry, so that families can benefit and submerse themselves more in forestry from a leisure point of view.

I thank the Chair for letting me in. I realise he is under pressure of time. I would be delighted if somebody from Coillte could engage with me, maybe offline, on these issues.