Eileen Lynch (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and his team for being with us today and for his patience during what has been a very informative but lengthy session. Many of the issues have been raised but I want to touch on one issue that has already been addressed. With regard to the afforestation plan, we are not at delivery and we delivered just one fifth of the plan for 8,000 ha of forestry last year. Today, the Climate Change Advisory Council has come out and said the scheme is completely unsuccessful and, because of the nature of some of the areas of forestry that have older timber or older wood, it is actually proving counter-productive. The Climate Change Advisory Council and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council issued a report some months ago outlining their concerns that we are not going to meet our climate targets, and they referred to the fines we are going to incur as a result. In that report, they focused on three areas where we can improve in order to meet our climate change targets, namely, our use of EVs, our access to the energy grid and the way in which we use forestry. I ask the Minister of State to comment on delivery, but more so in regard to the concerns expressed by the Climate Change Advisory Council today.