Mr. Jason Fleming:

I thank the Deputy for his comments. On land type, the demand for land out there now is frightening from all sectors. We are all going to the same pool for the type of land they are looking for now. I do not know if the Deputy was here a while ago when I spoke about the type of land being planted and the type of land not being planted. As he said, 20 or 30 years ago we were able to plant on every type of ground. Those days are gone.

The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was down our way, as the Deputy knows, visiting small farms.

He was promoting forestry and small farmers and he said he was going to look after this cohort of farmers. Unfortunately, when he came back to Dublin he left us behind. As the Deputy said, when he passed the Red Cow and went into the Dáil, he forgot about us.

The bottom line is that if this was happening to any other sector, within or outside farming, we would be marching up and down outside. We are on our knees. The people here have to realise that. We are on our knees as the forestry sector. There is nothing happening. No tree was planted in this country in the last three weeks. That is some statement. We are looking for the committee's help to get a few things over the line. We are not looking for a whole pile. We are looking for a few things to bring confidence back into the sector. It takes something like four months to get our licences after we apply for them. That is in the departmental guidelines. We spoke about ash dieback. We need to fix the loophole whereby taxpayers' money is going into investment funds inside or outside the country. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was on the radio a couple of weeks ago saying he was looking for a facility whereby Coillte could draw down the premiums. We are not supporting that either. The Government needs to ring-fence this money for farmers and support farmers who plant trees. We will plant. We met these targets before and we will meet them again if we are supported properly.

There is a big problem on the ground with some farmers who worry whether they will be allowed to cut down their trees 30 years or 100 years from now, particularly if they are native woodland trees. We are also hearing that on the ground. You have to look at that too. Will we be allowed to cut them down, because the goalposts are changing on a monthly basis? We do not know what is going to happen 30, 40, 50 or 60 years from now.

What do I have to say about the Minister of State, Senator Hackett? She has to step up to the mark here. As the Minister of State with responsibility for forestry, she is the captain of our ship. She has to lead us out of this mess because the ship is sinking.