Mr. Gerard Murphy:

I thank the Chairman and members for their questions. Deputy Penrose asked if we are embarrassed by what has happened. I would have to say that the vast majority of the farm partnerships are working well. We believe that after going through the process. Obviously, there are very dissatisfied partnerships. I would prefer not to have that position. We are actively engaged with them to resolve any of the issues that they may have. It would be wrong to say that I am not concerned. Whether it is one, two, five or 100 partnerships, I would like to have all our partners fully satisfied in terms of honouring the obligations we have set out with them.

Another of the Deputy's questions relates to how we communicate with them and whether they are properly advised. As I said earlier, according to the review we conducted, all contracts were the subject of independent legal advice. I have not yet seen an example of a contract that was not subject to such advice. There would have been extensive communications with the farm partners in terms of how those contracts were entered into and what people were looking for. At the time - 20 years ago - the big issues for farmers coming into forestry were continuity of income and access to management expertise. That is what they were looking for because they were concerned, going into forestry initially, about how they were going to have income continuity, particularly from farm premiums. This is what was designed by the partnerships in the context of what we were doing.

In terms whether they were properly advised regarding the replanting obligation, there is a felling licence obligation in all contracts and the replanting obligation is part of that. In the context of all of the premiums, the form 1 and form 2 contracts people would have entered into would have reminded them that there was a replanting obligation. In terms of the call log, the form and whether we wrote to people, we did write to all our partners setting out the call log and we also advertised it in the Irish Farmers Journal . In terms of all of the recent media coverage, the issues are certainly well publicised now.

The Deputy asked a question as to why we are using KPMG in the context of transparency.