Mr. Brian Smyth:

We need democratic input into the licensing system, as opposed to the decision-making being solely a matter for foresters. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is poacher and gamekeeper because it is setting the policy and licensing the system. The commitment is to advance and push the planting of more and more trees. It is priming the pump to do that, and pushing forestry into our area. We see that there are issues. The issues we see on the ground when that happens are not being addressed sufficiently in monitoring and enforcement, or when we raise concerns. The local authority is addressing them up to a point, particularly where there are water pollution and other issues, but it should not all be located within the one authority. We believe that licensing being solely the responsibility of the Department is an issue. We see the fact that it is exempt in development as an issue. We believe that should change in some way. The local democratic input is made through the local county development plan. The frustration is that the local authority does not have a say and cannot make its views on the county development plan known on the basis of what people want within the county. We want sustainable-----