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

I thank the witnesses for coming in. Like the other speakers, I wish Mr. Gorman the best of luck, and the vice president as well.

Mr. Fleming spoke about the nurseries. An announcement was made in the UK in the past week that they are cutting their funding for forestry by 50% this year for their targets. The nurseries in the UK will have an abundance of plants that will probably come into Northern Ireland and other places. If we were hoping to keep it alive here, I would say that our forestry industry is dead at the moment. I think 45 ha of this 1 acre dream world they were on about is all that is being done. We understood that we could plant if there was less than 35 ml of peat in the 1 ha, but now we cannot. It is in the doldrums. The big worry I would have is that we will not have a nursery left in Ireland to be quite frank about it. I would like the witnesses' views on that.

Mr. Gorman referred to €1.3 billion for the forestry programme. It is €300 million; that is what it is. It is €1.3 billion over 20 years. The Government has done the greatest three-card trick it can do. The people here who went abroad to Brussels, namely, Deputy Cahill, Senator Lombard, Deputy Kehoe and myself, learned that.

I raise a third issue before I move on to the famous beetle. On ash dieback, I presume the witnesses have seen the document the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, has received. There are realistic things in it but the funding will not be given to help people with ash dieback. I would like their thoughts on those three issues before I move on.