Mr. Jason Fleming:

I can start with that. A lack of take-up of planting is the reason the money is unspent. As I have said, there is no confidence in the sector and that is why farmers are not planting.

I will go through a few of the Deputy's questions. On the bark beetle that was found in Cratloe, our understanding from the Department there is that it is engaging with the farmers in Clare and they are trying to contain it to the 21 farmers there. We have heard nothing back.

I was at a meeting in Clare just before Christmas with Tom and John Fitzgerald. Clare is one of the biggest counties that was affected with ash dieback. Believe it or not, it took over the whole meeting. We had a good meeting on all types of forestry as in we discussed a lot of topics but the ash dieback was the main concern. They are looking for action from the likes of ourselves to lead them and to try to get this review implemented. As I said earlier, it would go a long way to getting a small bit of confidence back into the sector.

The Deputy mentioned the roadside trees. That is a massive concern for us. As Mr. Gorman will outline, the likes of me bring it up on a monthly basis at the national council and we have good support on that. We have written to the local authorities and the Department but what we are looking for here is support for us as farmers to take down these trees from the local authorities. To be fair, from a health and safety point of view, we would not advise any farmer to go tackle these trees on their own, especially roadside trees, because they are unsafe. Whatever part one goes at, a branch could fall, etc. Especially over the wintertime, with guys walking, cycling, etc., these trees are a health and safety risk. The sooner there is a package put in place to support us, the better. We are not looking for full compensation. We are only looking for support to take down the trees. The cost of taking down these trees is frightening because we must have a traffic management plan on either side and we need tree surgeons who know what they are doing to take down the trees. The health and safety aspect of this is a massive concern for us. With the cost of this, farmers themselves might attack the trees themselves and we do not want that.