Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 3 December 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Coillte Annual Report 2018: Discussion

Ms Bernie Gray:

Yes. It is not just in our interests but in conjunction with everybody else in the sector. Coillte invested in the Forestry Ireland initiative where all the companies and players in the sector come together because forestry affects everybody. The purpose is to make transparent the benefits and attractiveness of forestry as a sector to potential employees. Coillte operates an annual graduate recruitment programme. This year, a number of the graduates we recruited came from eastern Europe because we could not source them in Ireland. We want to be an employer of choice such that potential employees in Ireland want to join Coillte and understand what a job and a career in the sector can bring them.