Ms Bernie Gray:

To go back to the overall question, the Deputy asked why the degree of urgency was not identified by Coillte in terms of afforestation as a means of addressing climate change in 2016 and 2017. First, there was a limited awareness in Ireland overall of where we were at in the climate change challenge at that point in time. Second, Coillte at that time was in a poor financial state. In 2017, we had a debt of €153 million. Since the,n under careful stewardship, the company has turned itself around under restructuring to the point where it has paid maximum dividends to the State over the past two years. That performance has put Coillte in a position where it can now consider afforestation and taking on debt if it needs to, in addition to state aid, together with private capital to see how afforestation can be achieved. However, it was not in that position in 2016 or 2017.