Mr. Simon White:

There is no need to apologise and I thank the Chair. I had started to allude to the fact that so many people have been excluded from the scheme and this revelation been quite startling and begs the following questions now. What happens to the dead plantations that are excluded from the scheme? What happens to those who are not worth the while of professionals, expected to carry out the work, getting involved with?

Out of the original 26,000 ha planted under state-aided schemes fewer than 6,000 ha, and I would say a hell of a lot less than that but a very small proportion, have been taken out already or applied for under ash dieback schemes to date. Another 5,000 ha are now deemed ineligible. Out of the 15,000 ha the Department states are limited to being eligible under this amended reconstitution and underplanting scheme, RUS, it would appear that in the case of over 50% of that group, they will say it cannot be done. That leads us to ask, what happens in respect of something in the region of over 12,000 ha? This scheme can only deal with another very small proportion.

The dictatorial stance taken by the Department and the Minister, in rigidly sticking to this unworkable plan, ignoring the actual reviewers' recommendations, displays an extraordinarily poor grasp of the knock-on effects of taking such a stance. The reality is that if this scheme fails to resolve the ash dieback crisis satisfactorily, the forest service is a dead duck. As the Department continues to treat forestry support completely differently from the support it gives to other agricultural enterprises, no-one in their right mind, with land on which he or she might like to plant trees, will sign up to planting, which is exactly what has happened during the whole life of this Government.

Who is going to plant trees with an obligation to abide by rules that the Forestry Act allows the Department's forest service to recommend the Minister change at any moment it wishes? The people who planted ash back in the 1990s are the forestry pioneers of this nation. By treating such an influential group in forestry in the way it has, the forest service is destroying the foundation of our private forestry industry. Everyone aware of the way tree growers have been treated will continue to steer clear of forestry until the situation is rectified. How ridiculous is this?

The Government purports to be environmentally concerned. We all now understand the beneficial potential of growing substantially more trees. Trees mitigate our greenhouse gas emissions, improve our carbon footprint, supply many environmental benefits such as biodiversity, habitats, pollution filtration and oxygen production. However, there is a cultural malaise in the Department that is causing an inability to see that the regulation and control of forestry, under its command, is strangling an enterprise it states it wants to succeed.

The review made other very significant points: ash dieback is a national emergency and needs to be dealt with urgently; the process for dealing with the issue needs to be simplified and support the principles of the forest strategy so it needs to be equitable, consistent with State and EU law and customer-centred in supporting communications and advice to those customers. Moreover, it is imperative to rebuild the lost trust and confidence in state-aided private forestry and there is a natural justice argument for people with tree crops to be treated similarly to other primary producers, which is not the case at present.

The length of time to design and introduce a scheme to implement its recommendations, since the review report was submitted to the Department last September, shows just how the Department and the Minister have no concept of this being a national emergency. Those watching their plantations die before them every day are disillusioned and very angry.

What about simplification? One only has to read the 34 pages of terms and conditions attached to this scheme to realise that anyone would need a PhD in form filling to understand the hugely complicated wording and its implications to the applicants. The imposition of unreasonable terms in this scheme, such as the staggered payment of this climate action performance payment, CAPP, over four to five years, has an enormous effect on destroying the trust and confidence of farmers in the forest service. Why impose three unnecessary applications through a forester on this payment and delay it?

The question raised by other forestry groups as to whether the forest service, under the direction of the Department, is capable of regulating and administering deserves serious consideration. We are now informed that the administration cost per hectare of forestry, under the Department, has risen from €668 per hectare to €7,400 per hectare, which is elevenfold. This is astonishing and questions the value for taxpayers' money. It is now appears that, without a huge increase in planting, something that seems more and more unlikely, the majority of the €1.3 billion allocated to the new forestry programme will be returned to the State's coffers unspent, apart from a large chunk used to pay for an overstaffed and relatively unproductive forest service. Maybe setting up a separate forestry agency to oversee forestry is the way to go, as these people are looking for.

If we do not sort this ash dieback issue quickly we will not make climate change mitigation targets. We are committed to these targets and will face fines of a magnitude in the region of €3 billion, which is a sum that will pale into insignificance the sums needed to address the shortfalls in this scheme.

It is obvious that the Ministers and the Department are not interested in changing this scheme. Mr Savage, the chairman, made that abundantly clear at that task force meeting. Therefore, it is up to us to persuade the politicians to bring this change about and to help us do so. That is why we are appealing to the committee. A general election is not too far away and this issue need to be dealt with by everyone here. Many more voters in rural Ireland are affected by ash dieback than most people realise and there are dying ash trees on every road in Ireland. Each grower suffering its effects has a large family cohort of voters, who are very aware of and angry at the way this issue has been disgracefully neglected. They voiced their concerns outside the gates of Leinster House a couple of weeks ago and one could see the anger that was there.

To conclude, we would like to put forward the changes we consider must be introduced without delay. First, the payment per hectare for clearance needs to be increased in line with the age of plantation being cleared and prepared. We see the most effective and efficient way to do this is to have the forest service contract with those who are to do the actual clearance, forestry companies and contractors, so that the landowner is not involved in this, and the residual value of the trees cleared must be left with the plantation owner because the companies are taking them at the moment. Second, the CAPP payment is an innovative mechanism thought up to overcome the hurdle of constricting state rules, and I say "Well done" in that regard. The concept of the CAPP should be expanded to cover an upfront payment according to the age of the trees, as explained earlier, and to give an ongoing income equivalent to an afforestation grant under the existing forestry programme while these plantations grow. It can be done; the mechanism is there.

There should be consideration of an overall restructuring of the regulation of forestry in Ireland. The mismanagement within the Department and its forest service which is illustrated by its failure to achieve a significant increase in afforestation despite stated Government policy needs to be addressed. The numbers employed in the forestry industry has fallen over the past two years from 12,000 to 8,000 and we have lost 30% to 50% of forestry machinery due to catastrophic delays in processing applications to carry out work in forests. Private forestry in Ireland is being strangled by bureaucracy. We propose that there be a sworn legal inquiry into what has gone wrong, what is wrong and who is responsible for this.

Due to climate change we are facing a significant increase in risk posed by imported diseases into our forest industry. The bark beetle is knocking on our door and so on. We propose that our national phyto-security be strengthened as a priority over ease of trade. We also agree with the review recommendation that there be a greater sharing of the resulting effect of diseases between State and forest owners. Recent changes place most of that risk on the forest owner.

Finally, every inch that was planted originally in the state-aided schemes must be eligible for a new amended scheme if this is to be equitable.

I thank the members for their attention.