Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. To be fair to Coillte, the organisation has improved its image over the years, particularly through its work on walkways, opening up its forests and letting the public make use of them. When I was Minister of State at the then Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, I had responsibility for the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS. We did a deal with Coillte in respect of Ballycroy National Park. It was agreed that Coillte would look after the walkways and greenways and keep them clean and open. Land was given to the NPWS that was never going to be used properly for forestry. I must compliment Coillte on that. It has done a lot of good work over the years. As the witnesses have said, there are many organisations besides Coillte in the forestry business and because Coillte is a semi-State company, it is under the scrutiny of the Oireachtas committee. Some operators can go out and do what they like, and they are not answerable to anybody.

However, I must say that the recent deal that with was done with the UK venture fund certainly did not go down well and Coillte did not handle it well. It could have explained to the public what was actually going on in a better way. It was the way that it came out and was dealt with was not very satisfactory. It looked like lots of our land was being given away to a foreign country that has left Europe, does not want to be part of Europe and of this country or any other European country. Land is very important to people in this country. We go back 100 years as a State and there have been issues in relation to land between England and Ireland. To think that 100 years ago people died to set up a Republic and now we are nearly giving back the land to the Brits again. I know Coillte will not look at it that way but the deal was handled very badly and it went down very badly. Coillte has a bit of work to do as a semi-State agency to get the confidence of the people back again.

I have two or three questions. The first concerns farmers. What is Coillte doing to encourage farmers to make land available for forestry? As far as I am concerned, Coillte is not doing enough in that regard. We are being told by Coillte and the Department that there is money to be made for farmers if they plant trees. If it is so good and profitable, why are more farmers not planting? What can be done to encourage farmers to work with Coillte and to make it worth their while to plant trees?

My second question is on Coillte staff and the witnesses might not have the information to hand. How many staff does Coillte have at the moment? If the witnesses do not have the information, they can send on the reply to me.

There is a big issue is in relation to land prices. People can talk around the issue any way they like, but there is no point pretending. Farmers want to buy land, builders want land and everybody wants land. As the previous speaker said, nobody is actually making any more land available. We only have what we have. There will be no more land made available, only what we have presently in the world and in the country. I know that Coillte has to go out there and compete to buy land. I must say that I would like to see more encouragement to get more farmers involved, in particular. Farming is a way of life and farmers will do anything. I know the Chairman is a good farmer and there are many other farmers here. If there is money to make in something, farmers will do it and they will do it well. If they think there is a good reward out of forestry, they will respond. There must be something very wrong when they are not responding. I know that we have discussed the issue at the committee over the last two years, in particular, in relation to licensing and to getting felling and planting licences. That is a big issue. Do the witnesses believe any change is taking place that could help to encourage more people to plant trees? It seems that people are angry that they cannot get trees felled or planted and that the rules and regulations are overburdening.

That is part of the reason farmers will not get involved in forestry.