Mr. Mark Carlin:

In Coillte we operate a graduate programme every year. We are bringing on new foresters and engineers to the tune of about ten or 15. We are also looking to hire a directly interoperative workforce and to develop people through that. One of the things we are seeing within our sector, which is not unique to forestry and sawmilling and our supply chain as it is similar with construction, is workforce capacity challenges going forward. The forestry sector will double in size in the next ten to 15 years. It is a high-class problem in one way. We will have readily available supply in terms of being able to use more wood and to build with more wood to drive our bio-economy, but we need to be careful in terms of attracting people into the industry as well. We need more foresters, more ecologists and more engineers, so we have to work extensively on promoting career opportunity within forestry and, particularly, diversity within forestry, which has been a real challenge for us. We also need more operatives within the supply chain, harvesting operators and people to plant trees all the way through the workforce. We are working across the industry at the moment on that workforce capacity challenge. I think this is an opportunity as well, if we can get this right, in terms of a just transition because forestry can offer well-paid green tech jobs in the rural sector. However, we need to approach this strategically and make sure we have an apprenticeship scheme in place. We have graduates coming in as well.