Ms Imelda Hurley:

Our strategic forestry fund is targeting 3,500 ha over the next five years or approximately 700 ha per annum. We all know, and it has been discussed in this committee as well, that land prices have moved fairly considerably over the past couple of years.

That was before the Irish strategic forestry fund. There are clearly significant demands on land going forward in terms of rules and the amount of land, given herd owners may want more land than they needed previously for afforestation infrastructure. It is also the case that for a fund of this nature, there is a limit to the amount that it can pay for land such that the returns can be made for the types of investors going in, such as pension funds looking for long-term, low risk returns.

Questions were raised earlier in terms of Coillte's land transactions. For many years, we have been involved in buying and selling land. We do it in a highly responsible way and that will certainly be how we plan to proceed.