Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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I will be very brief, as I realise the evening is moving on. My question to the Minister is about ethos, where the forestry programme is going and tying in all sections of the agriculture industry. In his presentation he mentioned the event at Moorepark last week, which some 10,000 people attended. It was a massive event, attended by dairy farmers from every part of the country. It featured no real discussion of the forestry programme and no effort to get farmers to buy in and become a part of this industry. That is the issue. I was at the event. Perhaps I missed it.

We need to have a real conversation about dairy farmers giving a portion of their land over to the forestry programme. We need that buy-in but it is not there. Unfortunately, forestry is regarded as a dirty industry in many ways. I mean no disrespect but involvement in forestry suggests that a farmer perhaps failed or has bad land. There has to be a change of view. That change and the buy-in to which I refer need to happen for the benefit of the economy, the environment and farming.

The Minister got a bit of stick last year when he stated that perhaps 2% of a holding should be in forestry. How can we get that buy-in from the farming community? If what the Minister is seeking happened, how could we put a scheme in place to help the industry change and transfer? We are all part of the industry in many ways. We all go to discussion groups but the dairy discussion groups never talk about forestry or about setting half an acre aside for forestry. That does not come into the view of the Teagasc adviser in that discussion group. How will we tie all those things together? I have not seen it yet. If we are to make the major inroads that the Minister of State says need to happen, there has to be buy-in. What is the Minister of State's policy to ensure that we can get the buy-in from the dairy and beef industries? What species does he think should be planted? What percentage of landholding should be tied into it? What role should a Teagasc adviser at a beef or dairy discussion group play in that regard. What part should that play in the context of the knowledge transfer scheme in order that we can change people's view? Some farmers, if they see a batch of spruce trees, might ask what is happening and state that the land involved has gone out of farming permanently. That needs to change. How can the Department work to ensure that can happen?