Ms Marie Donnelly:

I was trying to be much more diplomatic than that. That is why we have not really built them in, because, as we said, we really need to get technologies that we know can work and that we can afford and will not distort the situation. That is one of the very clear reasons we did not rely too much on those.

The Senator mentioned forestry, which is a real source of concern to the council. We have a forestry programme in the country, we have a very good financial support for it and our forestry is in total disarray. We have a national target of planting 8,000 ha a year. We are currently somewhere between 1,500 and maybe, in a good year, 2,000, so we are a long way away from achieving our own targets for the current round of forestry, not to mention the targets we would need going forward to meet the nature restoration law and some of the provisions at European level.

It is a real challenge to understand and deal with the reluctance of those who have land, farmers and others, to invest in forestry. We really need it. It is good not only for biodiversity reasons but also from an economic perspective in that we can grow wood here which we can use in building houses using modern methods of construction. We can use wood in other formats where we can embody the carbon in the wood products. We have an industry, we have knowledge within the sector and we have the capacity to do it but we are just not planting enough trees.

Having said that, the key issue is to plant the right tree in the right place. We need a mixture of trees and a diversity of species coming through. Yes, we can have commercial trees, and yes, we can have native species. It is a mixture we need. One of the issues the council is very clear on - I am not saying it has happened - is that if any of the windblown happened on deep peat soils, we are very opposed to replanting on deep peat soils because it releases the locked-in carbon. Each site needs to be considered and developed appropriately with, as I said, the right tree in the right place, but it is a real nut to crack to know how we will be able to increase the volume of forestry being developed in the country. As I said, we have policies and we have money; it is just hot happening. It is probably fair to say that, more generally, everybody is looking for good ideas in this space.