Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and the Minister of State and their officials for coming in again. They encountered a perfect storm in 2020 when they took up their current roles with the legal issue that was encountered. Additionally, forestry became centre stage because of the new climate commitments and biodiversity challenge we have. It fell to the Minister and the Minister of State to navigate the sector through a difficult time for it. They inherited a very challenged sector.

In talking about confidence, I must say I have absolute confidence in the Minister and the Minister of State. I have seen at close hand the efforts they have put in to get the sector on the path it must be on. In time, whatever about what some might say, in this room or across the headlines of the newspapers, any objective analysis will show that the Minister and the Minister of State tackled this crisis commendably and put the sector on the path it needs to be on.

I have some questions. I ask for some elaboration on the progress made concerning the programme for Government commitment to incentivise small-scale native planting and to re-engage farmers with on-farm forestry. I also ask that agroforestry be touched on, the potential which exists in this regard and the part it will play in us meeting our forestry targets. Colleagues have spoken about the importance of timber in construction. From a climate perspective, I chair the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action and we talk about this all the time. The hundreds of millions of trees that we are going to grow in the next decades here are going to sequester megatons of carbon but they are also going to displace more megatons of carbon that would have been generated by producing steel and concrete. This is how important forestry is. I ask the Minister and the Minister of State to develop their thoughts on how timber can play a role in displacing steel and concrete.

To the Minister and the Minister of State, if either of them might have thoughts on this issue, the European Commission was clear during the state aid approval process that Ireland needs to achieve a better balance between broadleaf and conifer planting. With respect to the State-owned entity, Coillte, they might comment on what it is doing to play a part in this rebalancing. There is much talk from the environmental NGOs about renewing the mandate of Coillte. What are the thoughts of the Minister and the Minister of State with respect to pivoting Coillte from the profit-oriented entity it is now to one with a broader mandate concerning the challenges we have?