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

I warmly welcome the witnesses and thank them for coming. The one thing I would like to highlight and take from their presentation - and I have listened very closely to every word they have said - is the fact that they are re-enforcing what we knew already but what we needed them to come here to say, that is, the total lack of confidence they have in the Minister of State and the current Administration in how they have handled forestry affairs over recent years. It is like being in a different world when you listen to the Minister of State any of her officials or people from the Department and when you listen to the witnesses. The witnesses are speaking the language we hear from the people who are important, namely, the stakeholders, the farmers, the landowners and the forestry owners - those who know what they are talking about. They do not have confidence in the Department, and saying that gives me no satisfaction. I would love to be able to say that our Minister of State is a credit to forestry. I would love to be able to say that the senior officials in the Department are doing great work. I would love to be able to say that but I cannot do so because I would be telling a lie and it would be wrong to give that impression.

As I have said previously, since 1946 there has not been as little confidence in the forestry sector in Ireland as there is today. Again, I am not happy to say that. I am a positive person. I would rather be praising people than condemning their work but, unfortunately, they have done nothing for confidence in forestry. They have done nothing for existing foresters. There are as many flaws with the package that was rolled out recently as what is good with it. This is how you judge anything: you stick your finger in something and lick it to see whether or not it tastes nice. If forestry were as good as the Minister of State tries to say at the moment, or if the confidence were there, we would see farmers planting, but they are not. If farmers who have marginal ground now wonder what they will do with it and whether forestry is a good investment for them, the answer they will give is that it is not.

I would like to think that I know what I am talking about. Twenty-five years ago I planted 86 acres of forestry. Before that, I started out with a horse drawing out timber for Grainger Sawmills. I progressed to a double-barrel winch behind a four-wheel-drive tractor, so I would like to think I have come to know a thing or two about forestry over the years. I have never seen it as bad as it is now. People are simply not interested in sodding or planting a piece of ground any more when they see how difficult it has been for people to get thinning licences or permission for a road. There is also the quagmire of the hold-up that was and is there. People are saying the Government is not really serious about this. It is amazing. The one time we have a Green Party member in charge of forestry, you would think there might be a passing interest in it, but, unfortunately, there is not. There is no interest whatsoever in it.

Then there is the issue of carbon credits. It is beyond belief to talk about carbon emissions when landowners saw fit many years ago to plant their land, remove it from being actively farmed and say, "We will trust this whole system and plant trees." Surely to God, now, when carbon is an issue, and if there are carbon credits, that should be of tangible value to the person who had the guts and the gumption to plant their land and it should be a tradeable commodity. They could be allowed to trade it with a factory, for instance, or somebody who was deemed to have carbon emissions such that a trade could be done and it would be a valuable asset. That would certainly make forestry attractive again. It would help with the value of timber and the value of forest and would be a good thing for people but, again, there are no meaningful efforts being made in that regard.

I thank all the witnesses for being here, in particular Mr. Fleming for the work he has done in his role over recent years. You can always judge an individual by whether he or she is really committed to the person on the ground. I know that all the witnesses are, but I know Mr. Fleming personally and he certainly is interested in the farmers and promoting forestry and promoting people planting ground. He wanted to be positive about it in every way he could and he always did that, and I acknowledge that.

We have an awful job of work to do. I do not like talking about problems all the time without talking about solutions. I would like to see a vibrant forestry sector. I would like to see a proper price for timber. I would like to see it being easily accessible for people to change over from the stage of thinning or clear-felling a forest and selling that timber to the mill, wherever their nearest local mill is, and putting it out into the market. We have seen an awful thing happening in that regard for a number of years whereby the price of timber just went through the roof. That adversely affected other very important people to all of us, that is, the young couples and the people who want a home. When it comes to the price of the raw material and the amount of timber that goes into any house, if the price of that has gone up and up, we certainly want to see the price normalised at the same time, but that can be done while still having a good price for the farmer. It was not the farmer who was getting the enormous price for it; it was that the price had gone up.

I do not want to eat into the time. I want to allow time for the witnesses to respond. I thank them again for being here. I appreciate the efforts they make in coming before an meeting like this and in giving evidence. I thank them again for that. I also thank the Chairman for the sound way in which he always conducts these meetings.