Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have evidence of one done in Roscommon. I do not want to say too much publicly about it. It was very recent. I will not press the witnesses on this. They have been very honest with their answers. However, I know of a young farmer who was looking for that land. My information is that it went over €8,000. I do not blame Gresham House altogether because he may have got cold feet at €8,000. He is a young progressive farmer and he has lost that now. He has told me that this has changed his entire focus on farming. All I am saying is that we need to be very careful about this.

At the moment, Leitrim has 17% forestry and we know the rest of the country is below that. Will Coillte be advising Gresham House that it cannot purchase land in counties like Leitrim? I agree that is not a huge contract. How can it be spread evenly over the country? As someone from Roscommon and the west, I fear that if this is not well monitored by Coillte and well scrutinised by politicians, including me, we could have blanket forestry.

I am not against forestry. I understand that it is a good way to deal with climate change. I do not want a blanket of trees over the west and north west. I accept that some land there is more adaptable to forest than that in other parts of the country but if we were to spread it across the country, this would be far easier to do. It is important that we get the new scheme up and running, with 20 years' premiums and €1,100 per hectare. It is really good and I encourage farmers to stick with it until the other one is up and running and to hold onto their land and plant 2, 3, 4 or 5 ha, with some of it wild. As it has been a long meeting for the witnesses, I will accept a short answer.