Mr. Mark Carlin:

I will deal with that separately. The general point I would make around that is that what we try to do all the time is strike a balance in terms of the economic, social and environmental aspects. From an economic point of view, house builds need to double in Ireland and in the UK. There is a demand for 3.4 billion cu. m of timber, and timber is a good product. It is a better product than other carbon-heavy products. We need those products. Forty per cent of the world's timber comes from 7% of the world's forests. Getting timber products efficiently from plantation forests allows us to safeguard our own growth forests. We need these timber products and we need to get them in an economic way but also in a social and environmental way also. It is critically important that we understand that we need the timber products.

When it comes to silvicultural systems, we operate different silvicultural systems. We operate long-term attention where we want to keep the forest covered, particularly in recreational areas. We operate small group felling where we want to change the age structure within the forests. We operate clear felling reforestation, which is the most productive in terms of timber production, and we operate continuous cover forestry in areas particularly of high biodiversity or landscape sensitivity. We are trying to look at that balance all the time and ask ourselves what is the best silvicultural treatment to deliver the economic, social and environmental benefits from our forests. We are open to any dialogue on the best way to achieve that but it is important that we achieve all of those. We have to have a good recreation and social policy but also protect, enhance and restore biodiversity while keeping a vibrant industry that is producing sustainable products. The great point about forestry is that every single tonne of timber that is used is saving 2 tonnes of carbon.