Mr. Mark Carlin:

The Deputy has been complimentary about the vision in terms of its breadth. It is very ambitious in terms of what we are trying to do for climate restoration from a biodiversity point of view and with regard to planting new forest. It is an incredibly capital intensive programme of beyond €2 billion, as I am sure the Deputy will know. For us to execute this, we cannot do it with our own capital, even borrowed capital. We need to attract third party capital and get comfortable there because even some of the good things we have done very recently, including Avondale, were done with 30% of private capital. From a recreation point of view, from a forest creation point of view and even maybe for some of the restoration work, there are opportunities to take third-party capital, and we are going to have to take that opportunity, particularly when it comes to some of the ESG.

The good thing is that the forests that are created are managed by the State forester and they are open forests that are open for everyone to enjoy. They will be able to produce wood for houses and they will be able to deliver climate mitigation, but they will also deliver from a nature point of view. They will be delivering multiple benefits and they are managed by the State forester as well.