Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister of State on this. However, ash dieback was caused by bad importation. It was not caused by any of these landowners. They did not bring it in. It was a lack of importation controls at the ports. It was either our Government, which the Minister of State was not part of at the time, or another European government. Regardless, it was not the landowners. Why do they not get the money upfront when they did not cause this? It is the same thing with the bark beetle coming in. Dealing with that meant stopping imports from Scotland. We were still taking it. Where are our import controls? Where is the fairness to the landowners, when they did not cause this? This was not an act of God. It was not a storm.