Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 12 June 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Ash Dieback Scheme: Limerick and Tipperary Woodland Owners Limited

Mr. Simon White:

When we signed up, we did not understand all the small print because it was all hidden in the legislation and such. It was only when things went wrong that we suddenly found how we were caught. Now that we know how we are caught and the effects of it, we can see that this needs to be changed to make it attractive to young people and the next generations to come in. They are looking at what happened to us and they are angry because it will affect them in the future. All that needs to be done is to change that and also change the things that are wrong in the system and the way we got it wrong. We can then rebuild trust in growing trees because doing so makes sense to everybody. Everybody is telling us it is the right thing to do. We know it is the right thing to do. I am an environmental scientist. I can think of nothing better than to plant trees, but you have to entice people into it. You have to build confidence and get the young involved. All of us here are getting old. There are young people but they are not here because they see what has happened to us and do not want to know about it at the moment. Sort us out and they will come back.

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