Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for the presentation and for their attendance on this snowy afternoon. They said legal advice was provided to the people who signed up to these contracts. Did they get independent legal advice or was it just suggested that they get legal advice? Can the witnesses confirm that they actually got the legal advice?

I refer to clarity around the value of the timber and thinning at the time of sale. Many people are reaching the 17 to 20 year point when thinning is or should be happening. Do they actually get a clear statement of the value and volume of timber extracted, where it has been sold and what price has been achieved? Is that provided to them? From what we have heard, that does not appear to be the case.

The annual meeting is being presented as meaning that communication was ongoing whereas my understanding is that it would be a meeting whereby a local forester would go out to visit a farm and say to the owner, "Your trees are doing grand and we will keep an eye on them for you". That is my understanding of what is involved. It certainly would not be considered the type of communication for which farmers were looking. They wanted something more substantial - they wanted questions answered and they wanted to know where they stood, what was happening and where it was going. That type of meeting, which is more of a box-ticking exercise from the point of view of making sure everything was okay, does not fulfil the criteria and to suggest it does is being a little disingenuous on the part of the witnesses. I would like clarity in respect of that matter.

The witnesses mentioned that there was a range of partners up to 2012. How many new partnerships have there been recently? Have there been any and, if not, why not? Mentioned was made of an offer and I see that just seven partners out of 630 expressed dissatisfaction. To be honest, I do not think Coillte would be here if the figure was that low. If there were only seven people who had a problem, I do not think this committee or anyone else would be making such a song and dance about this. In fairness, it is less than 1%. It does not stack up that only that small number of people would have a problem and it seems more widespread than that. The witnesses suggest that, in some of those cases, Coillte would explore either buying out the partnerships at full commercial value or selling them to a third party. Is Coillte buying land at the moment? If it is not engaged in partnerships, where is it getting new land to plant? I recently came across a situation whereby, as I understand it, Coillte is actually selling land on the international market. What is going on in that regard?

Basically, Coillte's defence is, "We are honest people and we would not do anything wrong." However, we need something a little more solid than that to reassure the public and the people who have these contracts. What has been presented is quite flimsy. I have looked at one or two of the contracts and I have talked to several people who have them. They seem to be all over the place with regard to how well they stand up. Two of the people to whom I spoke certainly felt they were not told they needed to get legal advice or to get their solicitors to look over what is involved and that this was not raised with them at the time. They were presented with contracts, they discussed them a little bit with the people from Coillte and they signed up, trusting that everything was okay. I would like to hear the witnesses' final comments on that matter.