Mr. Gerry Britchfield:

Senator O'Neill asked whether we have difficulties in supplying SmartPly and Medite. We have supplied SmartPly and Medite to meet their requirements in recent years. SmartPly uses only pulpwood in its mill and Medite uses a mix of pulpwood and sawmill residues such as sawmill chips. Medite has more flexibility in terms of how it gets its raw material. SmartPly and Medite pay the market price for pulpwood in Ireland, which is significantly higher than the price their competitors pay for pulpwood in the UK market. A question was asked about whether re-investment in SmartPly is likely to go ahead. We have sought approval from the Minister to make this investment of approximately €60 million in SmartPly which will re-invigorate the mill and set it up for the future, allowing us to grow the business and protect the 150 direct jobs and the 150 indirect jobs. We are committed to it and are awaiting approval from the Minister. We understand a decision will be made shortly. We are very hopeful we will get the go-ahead to proceed with this investment.

With regard to our vision for recreation and tourism, specifically with regard to log cabins, in a broader sense we certainly see ourselves continuing to contribute to building up the tourism infrastructure in Ireland. We make a big contribution through the pieces I discussed earlier. The wilderness area in Mayo has the potential to add another string to the bow for Irish tourism and to be another attraction. We are also working with Cavan County Council on the geopark in the burren there. We are very open to working with local authorities on new and innovative projects they might have to add value to their tourism offering. Over the years we have proved we are very open to this through Lough Key, the Burren and the Ballyhoura mountain bike trails. We are open to working with local authorities.

We do not have specifics ourselves with regard to log cabins. We had a small number of log cabins in Killykeen but they did not make commercial sense. It was not a business we could make work so we no longer operate it. We are very open to talking to local authorities or other parties with innovative plans to improve tourism infrastructure.