Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It has been a major mistake of this Government and the last, and even the Government before that. They would not give a grant to people who wanted to plant marginal ground. People had to have 80% green ground and only 20% marginal ground. That has been the policy of the Governments since 2010 or 2011 and that policy is wrong.

We have a lot of marginal ground that would be good for planting Sitka spruce. As I said, we planted very marginal places that were absolutely horrible but the land grew timber. It is being transported through our village. What the witness said is very important, that we use whatever resource we have available to us. It is great to see lorry-loads of timber, be it from thinning or the big timber or whatever, being transported through our little village. There are only very few things that we are growing on our land.

There are those who have cattle and sheep, of course, but some people cannot do that kind of farming as they have marginal ground. We are being denied and this word needs to get back but there is no good in telling this to the Ministers we have at the present time because they are not listening. They are deciding about conifers. That is why I believe the Ministers we currently have do not want us to plant spruce trees and do not want us to cut them. They want us to remain static. I do not blame the witnesses one bit in the world for going to Scotland to bring in sawn long timber. At the same time, the same Minister will stand up and say that we must build timber frame houses, but from where are we going to get the timber if we do not import it? The witnesses agree it is going to become much worse because there is a gap at present.

It should have been the policy that if a person plants something, he or she should be allowed to harvest it. Now we have objectors. There should be no such thing as giving these people a chance to object at all to farmers cutting down their forests after they have planted them. It had to have been their notion to cut it down if they planted 30, 40 or 50 acres. It was not to get lost inside in the middle of it that they planted the land in the first place. What is going on is absolutely ridiculous. I know a fella in Rathmore who was seven years waiting for a felling licence. He got it finally in the end. He had a young family, a fine family, and he needed to support them going to college. They are all doing well but he could have made it easier for himself if he were able to benefit from the sale of his timber. Now he is waiting to get a licence to replant it. The whole thing is floundering.

As for Gresham House, this is wrong. I worked for Coillte and I appreciate the work it has done and the amount of timber it has provided. The Chair, Deputy Cahill, and I were across the road the other day at a forestry where my father first worked with a spade. It had been planted in 1951. The third crop of timber is being transported through the village these days. There is production. Men are working in the saw mills. Lorries are drawing timber. Forwarders are bringing out the timber. Planters are going onto the land with machines and they are mounding. Work is being done.