Mr. Brian Smyth:

There is no requirement to put up notices for felling - that is noted in our submission – as there is with afforestation. One of our members took a case for judicial review and following that case, the forest service was obliged to instruct applicants to put notice on a property for afforestation, but that was not the case for felling. Once the licence is granted for felling, the notice goes up but at that stage, the consultation process is over because the job is done. What we have is foresters who are well-qualified and professional making decisions about the long-term use of our land and the huge industrial scale plantation that takes place on it. As it is exempted development, our local authority in Leitrim has spent something more than 300 hours in a 12 month period making submissions that were largely ignored. That was the case when I last spoke to the senior planner. Only certain plots are referred to the local authority where they are close to SACs or the road will exit onto a council road. Only certain projects are referred to the local authority.

The draft county development plan in Leitrim has reflected that. The consultation is open at the moment and on 27 April we have a significant submission to make. We engage with the local authority on a regular basis. Two of our members in Save Leitrim are councillors and as was another one previously. We engage with all the local councillors on an ongoing basis, and with the executive. We know them well. They more or less think in line with what we are seeing and doing in that regard. The draft county plan states that in certain protected landscapes it would be the preference of this local authority if commercial planting was restricted or prohibited altogether as such commercial forestry is exempted development and there is frustration within the local authority that this express objective cannot be realised. That is the executive of the local authority and the members saying they are frustrated by the lack of input that they can make into how the county develops and its future.

There is no land use plan. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to develop one on a national basis but they should be run out in each local authority. That would define the type of land use in a particular area and whether that land is to be maintained for communities to live in, for agriculture or for biodiversity. Our chairperson referenced the increase in the value of land. We are talking about high nature value land in Leitrim. These are small enclosed fields and they are very valuable for biodiversity. If the same value was put on that by Government and by the EU and paid for, as is paid for the afforestation, then the value would be seen in the price of land as well. It is valuable land. It may not be valuable in terms of the number of cows and the milk solids you can get from it or whatever but it is very valuable land to us because it keeps our communities viable. It has raised generations of people and, hopefully, will continue to do so. When you get to the percentage plantation level driven by these incentives from Government and now by corporate investors. The corporates are not just companies, they are farmers from other areas who are buying up land and planting it. It is a misnomer to think that the corporates are just faceless companies or the Canadian teachers' pension fund, for instance, or a Danish investment company. Many of them are based in Dublin and are buying large tracts of land. There is a mix of people there.

In regard to Coillte, locally we have a good relationship with it in the broad sense because it has been in Leitrim, west Cavan and other places and has large land ownership for many years. Certainly there are issues with Coillte in its wider sense, in terms of its pure profit statutory remit. That is not necessarily applicable nowadays where we have climate issues. The statute was developed in 1988 and certainly needs review to incorporate other agendas into the corporate remit of Coillte. Certainly it is doing things, such as Coillte Nature, but that is competing with local communities, for instance, for recreational funding. There is a wider concern with our group in terms of the drive for profit in Coillte. It is investing in wind and is taking out forestry and that is creating its own issues in the communities. We had the landslide, although not on Coillte property, but it was very close to an SAC, which has been overplanted, previous to the designation. There is a wide range of issues.

On replanting on Coillte's property nationally, 53% is on peat and there is a net loss of carbon when you plant and replant peat. The bogs in the midlands we have mentioned are now being protected and are being rewet and rewilded for biodiversity and climate issues. The same should apply to the properties that were degraded by planting them with conifers which in many cases did not grow. I saw some of them at the weekend.