Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Ministers will be responsible for not moving on this. Be it via county councils, the single farm payment or some other system, funding should be provided for any ash trees along a road to be cut down. This should have happened already because someone, somewhere is going to be injured or killed. We see what happens during storms. The other day I saw a branch of an ash tree snap suddenly. It completely blocked the road. If someone had been walking or driving, there could have been serious consequences. The State has an obligation to protect its citizens from these kinds of hazards. We know about this. It is not something we do not know about.

Recommendations are all well and good and I see where they are talking about working with the witnesses and bringing them on board. However, having listened to the witnesses I am not so sure. If, while going upstairs, the Minister of State asks the witness had she been in touch, that is not a good sign. That is not the spirit of partnership when a report has been out for five weeks.

I will call it straight. We are dealing with one of the most incompetent Departments I ever saw while a member of the committee. We have our hair pulled out between ash dieback, planting and felling over the past three or four years. How many meeting has the committee had on these issues? We do not have meetings over and over again if something has been sorted. We have so much stuff to go through that we try to move on from one problem to the next. We had to continuously go back to the section on forestry.

Our national targets since 2016 have been less than 50% of what they should be. Over the past four years, we will have hit one year's targets in four years. That is a fact. In good faith, the likes of the witnesses decided to plant their land when it was not a cool thing to do at the time. To be blunt about it, it would be the last thing I would do because fairly good quality land is required to grow ash trees.

Incompetence in the Department is what led to ash dieback in this country because trees were imported. The dogs on the street know this. In good faith, the witnesses went into this and they have been left high and dry in recent years. The report is lovely to read. It is lovely to read that equity is needed for ash plantation owners along with a new partnership arrangement involving landowners in a designated task force. How long will all this go on? Will the witnesses be here again next year telling us a task force was announced the other day. This seems to be going on and on. The witnesses need a decision to be made and in the first instance, they need to be brought in to go through what really works.

At one stage people were phoning me to tell me they had to get planning permission to remove trees. We need a planning waiver for cutting the trees and getting the sites cleared. It is as simple as that. As Mr. White has rightly pointed out, they are turning into dust. They are breaking up into bits. They might be all right if somebody had a wood chipper to put them through to make a bit of bedding. This is what a lot of them are only good for. There are also roots and so on that have to be dealt with.

Support is required to leave the land bare. If people want to go into a different type of timber, they need to get the new grant. This is the only way forward. It is not complicated to decide how to do this. The Department was long enough going over and back to the EU about the depth of peat and the 30 cm and 50 cm. I cannot understand how under state aid rules we could not have got this across the line also. It should be across the line. It is a straight and simple case where people did something in good faith but the trees went wrong and the State acknowledges this. It introduced a scheme which was not acceptable. The proof is in the pudding with regard to the number of people who have taken it.

While it is lovely that the witnesses can come here and state this or that can be done and we will write a letter to the Minister, to be blunt about it it will take fierce political pressure to drive this on. The Department has sat on this for a good number of years. Mr. White said it has been going on since 2017 or 2018. That is five years ago. It needs a decision. We know what is needed. Everyone knows the pill that will solve this and the medicine that will sort it. It is about putting together a budget. In the estimation of Mr. White, what would be the budget required to remove it?

There should be waivers for planning permission for felling. It is not the case that when people fell them they will go to a mill. At best they will be firewood and they will not be good firewood. Woodchip could be made of them but then it is game over. That costs money. What would be the preference of the witnesses? Would it be to get a new 20-year scheme for farmers such as the forestry scheme? What would be their preference to sow? Would their preference be to get out of forestry altogether? Among the members and people involved in Limerick Tipperary Woodland Owners, what is the general thought?