Mr. Jason Fleming:

On the issue of dieback, the Minister of State, Deputy Hackett, came out. We had a conference meeting in Tullamore and we invited the Minister of State. We sent her a three-person review group the night before she came out and the recommendations came out, which we welcomed. As was stated, we are waiting for the recommendations to be implemented. The sooner that is done, the better for all of us. It might be a starting point to get a bit of confidence back into the sector.

This was a damning report of the Department and the Minister regarding how farmers are treated in this country in terms of ash dieback. These farmers who have ash dieback are planting in good faith, just as farmers with Sitka spruce do. Disease comes into the country and those farmers are left seriously out of pocket. There are farmers who have 30 ha or 40 ha of ash dieback and their land is worthless. That is not fair.

The Senator mentioned the spruce bark beetle. A Monterey bark beetle has come in already to Cratloe, County Clare, and it is affecting pine plantations. I think there are 21 farmers being affected down there, as far as I know. The Department got samples and sent them all over Europe and America. They found out that this beetle came in from South America. They are saying it came in through Foynes port. We therefore already have an example of a beetle coming into Cratloe. The number of farmers with pine plantations is small. However, if the spruce bark beetle gets in, there are more than 200,000 ha of spruce. That figure relates only to the grant-aided, but there is a lot more than that in this country.

The big problem with forestry at the moment is that forestry should be treated as a crop, but it is not. From my own point of view as a farmer with forestry, forestry is part of my farm. It is under the LULUCF at the moment. The sooner farm forestry is treated as a crop, the better for everyone.

There is a scenario as well regarding imports, which I think our president mentioned a while back. The whitethorn hedgerows have been coming in through the ACRES environmental scheme and these hedgerows have to be planted by March. In all fairness to Mr. Gorman, a while back he said that if this were over the five-year period of the scheme, it would give the mills the chance to get the stock in place and we would not have to be importing the likes of whitethorn hedgerows. It is the exact same here with forestry.

As I have said already, it is scandalous to think that some of the consignments, which are already coming into this country, are not being checked. Four of us from the forestry committee went to Wicklow and it was very hard to see there what checks were being done. They put down a grab to collect nine or ten logs and dropped them from the boat onto the port, but we just could not see what checks were being done. The Department is a visible check is being done to the top of the load, the middle of the load and the bottom of the load. There is also an odd log check here and there. That is not good enough. It is just not good enough and that is why we are calling for a task force to be set up to go through the biosecurity measures. As the Senator has said, there is a risk if this gets in. The average plantation in this country is 78 ha. Many farmers planted as part of a pension plan or to fund kids going to college, etc. We have a scenario now where, if this gets in, it will be the final nail in the coffin of forestry.