Mr. Tom Stephenson:

I have a little bit to add. Coillte gets huge sums of money every year from various shooting companies that bring in groups of people from Spain, Portugal and Italy. They come into the forests maybe once, twice or three times per year at different times when the shooting season is on for the stags and then for the does. They take the prize deer out and leave the rest to grow bigger for the next year. The farmer feeds these people breakfast and Coillte provides beds. The deer do not stay in the forests. When they are shot in the woods, they come out onto the farmland and come across this lovely, tasty grass. They are not going to go back in to eat the sedge that is in the forest again. They keep coming back and go in and out, tearing down the fences on my land. My farm is half-fenced. The other half is down because it runs all along a mile of forestry. When the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine comes out and sees that my fence is not up, I lose my single farm payment. I have put of four rods of electric fencing around the place with the mains and it is pulled down by the stags that come out. It is pulled down. I am just waiting for the time when the Department comes out and reprimands me for not having proper fencing on my farm. Bullets drive the deer out into the fields and they are hungry. That is all I have to say about that.