Mr. Mark Carlin:

I agree fully with the challenge that has been articulated. For us to deliver on afforestation, the biggest challenge is land. The number one way of doing this is with the largest landowners, the farmers, and putting the right environment in place to facilitate farmers to plant their land, if that is what they wish to do. That is incredibly important. We have been asked several times what Coillte is doing about afforestation, including at meetings of this committee. We have considered that. We do not have land so we have to get some. We can work with other public entities and look at public land. We are doing so by talking to local authorities and other agencies. An element of land needs to be acquired on the open market and we are going to have to do that responsibly. We think Coillte's involvement in afforestation needs to be about 20% of the total. That is, we believe, the appropriate level but we are open for feedback on that as well. If people want us to step up further and do more afforestation, that is fine. If the private sector kicks off and farming gets involved again, there will be less of an onus on Coillte. At the moment, we are doing 2,000 ha per annum. We need to do 8,000 minimum and maybe more than that. It is important, therefore, that the State forester gets back into doing this.

Afforestation cannot be done without access to grants and premiums. We have never done so. When we have been asked here why Coillte is not doing afforestation, the number one reason we have given has been a lack of grants and premiums. For this reason, we have to have a vehicle that can do this. The beauty of having two funds, one commercial and one non-commercial, is that it allows Coillte to acquire land appropriately and responsibly in areas near our existing forest estate. We can then determine what the best use of that land is. It could be for biodiversity in nature. If it is, then that will be a role for Nature Trust. If it is for wood production, it will be for the commercial fund to do it. We think this is a very good model to deliver a blended approach for afforestation in a mix of productive forests and forests for nature. It has to be able to attract grants and premiums and we have to be able to attract private capital. The scale of the climate change challenge ahead of us is huge. We need to plant more trees and the State forester needs to be involved again. This is the only way we can get back involved in afforestation.