Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Magner for his excellent presentation which was well laid out and very factual. I commend him on putting in print, and explaining it very well here, the fallacy of selling the harvesting rights. The sale is absolutely and utterly ridiculous and I detect that the Government is having second thoughts about doing so. We will have to wait and see.

At the end of last year we debated the sale of the harvesting rights of Coillte when it indicated that a portion of them would not be sold off due to being unviable. What percentage of lands owned by the public is non-viable and cannot be sold off? What would happen to the recreational value of those lands if the harvesting rights were sold? Would the sale not compromise the recreational value? A sale would mean that people would lose their right and entitlement to walk on the lands and thus decrease its recreational value. The communities that benefit from the forests would also lose.