Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to what Deputy Fitzmaurice brought up earlier. We know the pressure was on for Coillte to provide more, but bringing in investment funds is the wrong way to go, in my opinion. That is driving out small farmers and small foresters, which I believe is counterproductive. I know Coillte is saying it is not involved in the drawdown of grants, but this kind of partnership is definitely putting foresters and small farmers at a disadvantage. These investment funds, or vulture funds, have deep pockets. The prices they are able to pay for land could put people out of business. As the Chairman said at the outset, competition for scarce land will drive up the price of land. Gresham House is a UK business, which means - make no mistake about it - that every penny it makes will leave this country. That is no advantage to our sector here or anything else. I do not know how Coillte is going to address it. It is also involved with the Nature Trust, which is another investment fund. Axa is another company that is involved here. Do they draw down the forest premium? Have they given any indication of how much land they intend to purchase? There are concerns around the country that in certain areas, land seems to have gone up by 10% or 20% and that this will start rising as land becomes more scarce. I am not the only who has heard that; the whole committee will have heard it. These vulture funds have the money. It is going to be counterproductive. If something is not done, we are going to start driving out the small farmers and small foresters, whom we depend on and need. Was that taken into consideration either by Coillte or the shareholders, as the Department keeps being called, when these operations were allowed to take place?