Mr. Seamus Dunne:

To address some of the points, the Senator is right that our aim was to have the forestry programme up and running as early as possible this year. We had extensive consultation to develop a forestry strategy programme and vision, which was completed in 2022. We had an SEA and AA process which is nearly completed. We are waiting confirmation on what additional changes are required and agreed. Nothing from any previous State aid approval process would have led us to believe that this process would turn out to be as lengthy and protracted as it currently is. There is no doubt about the Government commitment to forestry. We had Government approval for €1.3 billion last November. We had a forestry programme completed last October. When it was first recognised that there was a risk that the programme would not be up and running early in the new year, we developed a de minimis scheme to allow any farmer or landowner who had approval to plant. We have 1,700 ha of land opted into that.

The Commission has raised concerns, which I will talk a little about. We have been involved, as Mr. Moore said, in ongoing engagement with the Commission to address concerns in a way that is fully compliant with environmental law, our own national law and the State aid guidelines on afforestation. Our aim and the aim of the Commission is to maximise planting and comply with environmental law, EU law, national law and State aid guidelines.

To deal directly with the issues we are discussing with the Commission, there are several issues, almost all environment related. They include the percentage of broadleaf trees planted nationally and regionally, and farmland birds, in particular open habitat birds, such as merlin and hen harrier, and the breeding waders, such as curlew, redshank, lapwing, dunlin, snipe and golden plover.

In addition, it has issues around peatlands on two fronts, one in terms of Annex I habitat peatland sites and, on the other side, the carbon balance in regard to planting peatlands. There are issues that we are addressing around high nature value farmland, given it is addressed in the state aid guidelines that there should be no inappropriate afforestation of high nature value farmland. There are issues that we are addressing on the freshwater pearl mussel, the screening for environmental impact assessment, EIA, public participation in decision-making, planting wetlands and climate adaptation.

These are the issues that have been under intense discussion with the Commission this year and we are resolving them with the Commission. In the last number of days, we have responded to its most recent submission of 1 June, and we submitted a letter back to the Commission in the last few days addressing all of its outstanding concerns, in our view.