Ms Mary McCormack:

Yes and I would pay for it. I would be at the loss of 21 years of growth and have to turn around and pay an amount that could vary from €6,000 to €50,000, depending on whether anything was found. My point is that the day I received approval was the day I was told that I had approval. At one stage we had a big beef farm with feedlots, barns and silage pits and no one was ever going to come back to us if we were reroofing or doing anything to them to say we had to apply for planning permission. It is so different in forestry. If it is not needed on the day approval is given at the start, why, 20 years down the road, would people be told that they must have a survey carried out and go through the planning office? I call it anti-forestry or an antiquated idea. We do not really know.

I have Sitka spruce. I must say I would not want it to be close to anybody's back door or near a school blocking out the light, but it is a wonderful crop of trees. People try to tell us that there is no biodiversity, but when we walk through the trees, we see eggs falling down from the branches. I do not know what species of birds are nesting in them, but they are laying eggs and the shells fall down onto the ground. There is a lot of nonsense spoken about people who are anti-forestry and we all have to get on together. We all have to support dairy farmers who have to support us. Nobody has a monopoly of anything. I came across somebody who told me that I should never have planted all of those trees. It was hard to keep my cool, but I did. I am so used to listening to it now.

We should receive more clarification. It is fine for those who are starting off now. They should go the planning office to ask whether there is any reason they cannot plant and what they need to do. They can then make an informed decision. I was sold a package which included everything Mr. Walsh quoted. At the time I had a 20-year premium, following which I would have an income from the production of hurley butts and this, that and the other. There would also be thinnings. I went for it because it was a scheme that had been drawn up by the forest service and it was a Government scheme.

I did not go into partnership with anybody. I did it privately because if the worst came to the worst, I was told that I would be able to sell it on the open market based on its value and the value of the trees, but I was in for a sad disappointment, even though I had looked after it well. The biodiversity is fantastic. Teagasc is great in running open days for us. It has been a great help, but those who need to go to the open days in the future are the ecologists, planners and legal people. It is very hard to find a solicitor who knows anything about forestry and even to have a valuation made of a forestry plantation. We have to go to a forester and there is a big variety in what we are told. I just want to have my land replanted and do not want all of this hassle. I want to have it replanted and enjoy it. I only want compensation, but people cannot be compensated for the stress they have endured. We are in limbo.

In school in learning history we were told about an arboreal holocaust in the 16th and 17th centuries. That is is what has happened to ash. It is like a holocaust. The entire species has been wiped out. It is hoped disease resistant species can be bred, but it could take 20 years. Dr. Gerry Douglas has been on my farm for two summers. Cuttings are taken and sent to eastern Europe. He is working on a project. However, it will take time to receive approved, go through all of the tests and for the root stock to be available. We will not replant ash if there is a question mark over it. That is where we stand, but I do not know where we will go. Young college students on holidays used to ask me to walk through the plantation with them. When I did so, I praised this, that and the other and said forestry was wonderful. I pointed to different things. The red squirrel was getting stronger, but do not ask me to do it now as I could not do it. I do not know what is the right thing to do. I do not know whether it is to try to put as much of it back into grassland.

That my story. The Minister of State spoke about the right tree in the right place. People make decisions on their own behalf and sum up their own situation, but it is some mess. We go here, there and everywhere in the hope we will get an answer. It was May 2017 when I received the diagnosis and the results came back from the laboratory that it was ash dieback and that it was endemic.

We thought we could just do a thinning, but when the results came in we were told it was everywhere and that not even 20% or 30% of the trees could be salvaged.