Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 15 January 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Forestry Bill 2013: Irish Timber Council and IFFPA

1:30 pm

Mr. Mike Glennon:

There are a few answers to that question. First, Coillte, more or less, got the largest land parcel in the State for not a very large amount of money a long time ago and had a huge facility to sell off various strategic assets for quite substantial sums of money for sites, dumps and whatever the case may be. It is clear from its annual accounts that for land it acquired at a low value on vesting day it got millions of euro when selling it off. It got a massive natural start and massive advantage. The issue may be that Coillte got involved with so many non-core activities that the effort on forestry was dissipated.