Ms Bernie Gray:

As set out in my statement, our preferred approach to achieving afforestation is direct investment in forests and direct acquisition of lands. The current change in state aid rules may open up that avenue to us sooner than we would have expected. When we were faced with the prospect of not having access to state aid but recognising that Ireland is in the middle of a climate emergency, our objective, as the national forestry company, was to support the nation and the people of Ireland in addressing the challenges of that emergency, which is why we established the Irish strategic forestry fund. It did two things. It gave us access to capital and enabled us to acquire land when state aid was not available. We expect that in the future we will focus on public bodies and our relationship with them. Our current project, as the committee will know, is with Bord na Móna in terms of the restoration of peatlands for that purpose. We expect that if the direct afforestation route becomes available, we will invest significantly in that. We also have the nature capital fund, to which we referred in our last discussion with the committee, which is for the purpose of native woodlands. They are the existing avenues we propose to use.

We are also in engagement with the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, to see how we can support farmers. When you look at landholding in Ireland, it is clear that farmers are the major landholders. We are not. We have 7% of the land, but farmers have significantly more than that.

I thank Ms Gray for that. I am conscious of our time.

Ms Gray might follow on regarding this, not now but at a later date. The IFA is interested in this. Its representatives are here regularly talking about it. I was not fully aware that Coillte was actively engaging with the IFA. The engagement has to be welcomed.

Ms Gray said Coillte's preferred option is to do the afforestation itself. Can she tell members what impediments she foresees? She mentioned the European Commission and the state aid rules that preclude public bodies from receiving afforestation premiums. What other impediments exist?