Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are getting a lot of coverage at present and a lot of people are on to us about the price of timber and the shortfall of timber in the market. I am trying to get to the kernel of the issue. Of the 1,200 felling licences that have been granted this year, only 419 had road licences. If we were to make an assumption that give or take 25% of felling licences do not need a road licence it still leaves a shortfall of 900 felling sites that will not have road licences. The point I am trying to make is that even as limited as the number of licences we are issuing is, we can start halving it again and again to get to the number that is being felled.