Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for their submissions. I had to leave for a few minutes. We need to call a spade a spade here. In farming terms there is a saying that the day one buys is the day one sells. The day someone plants trees, after going through all the hoops, there should be a follow-on process for putting in a road so that he or she has everything the day he or she starts. That could include a licence to drive a lorry, though one could drive a car or whatever right through as well. We need a system like that where people can bring their road and have it earmarked the day they plant their trees, which they will be thinning when they are fit. Farmers are not crazy. They do not go out thinning when the trees are not ready. They go cutting when they are ready. We need some sort of a system like that. We have to get back to the nub of the issue. We can have all the legislation in the world but we need a new system. The legislation was driven through fairly quickly.

In Ireland, the habitats directive has been brought in. That is the simple fact about it. Everything within 15 km of a designated area has to be screened out. No more than with farming, we cannot do today what we did 20 years ago. In the system that was there down through the years, farmers got help from their forestry person, sent in an application and went to the forestry inspector. The inspector then looked at it and said it was a great job and lovely land which would suit the job perfectly and he or she would go out, look at it and go through it and give the go-ahead. Things progressed and we brought in the habitats directive. Now, when an application comes in there are the legal challenges. We might not like objectors but they saw the gate they could go out. It is as simple as that. We left it open for them.

Since 2010 we have never achieved what we said we would on planting. Only 57% of our worst planting has been planted since 2016. That is because it is held up and because we decided the same system would be used. Now, because of legislation, when the people who were perfect for the job look at an application, they are not qualified as ecologists to screen it in or out. That is no disrespect to them. Everything has to be screened in and applications are in a muddle with all the rest of them holding it up. If I had someone working for me for four or ten years who only achieved 50% of a target, he or she would be answering questions. Unfortunately, that will not happen in the Ireland we live in today. It is no wonder farmers will not plant.

We had two tsunamis. First, we had the Coillte contracts, with which Mr. Cullinan and the IFA are dealing. In their own opinion, farmers have been burned by those contracts. Second, there are many farmers at the moment who have been waiting up to two or three years for the go-ahead. They are left in a quagmire. They just get sick of it. We can have the farming organisations, all the politicians and everything else, but the EU legislation is there. If someone is putting in a road, if it is within 15 km there are designations. I am well used to it where we are from. Screening is the first thing and then one has to go through an NIS, an EIA or an AA if it will not screen out. We are in that barrel at the moment and we have to make sure that whoever has all the letters after their name is the person who can look at it first to shoot it out of the way and get it sorted quickly.

We can talk about forestry. Some 12,000 jobs will be at stake. Timber is being brought into this country at the moment. There is moss peat coming into Dundalk and timber coming into Cork and Limerick. One would wonder what we are doing. What we are at in this country at the moment is like bringing oil to the Arabs. We need to change the system. The system now, because of the legislation, means the people who know more about timber than anyone, and have probably forgotten more about it than most people know, can no longer legally look at applications when they go to a European court because they do not have the qualifications or the letters after their names. Unless we change that system we will be here again next year and the year after.

Three and a half years ago, I met with the Department about this problem and flagged what was going on, because farmers come to me and tell me what is going on. If everything is going grand, I will never see them and there is no bother. They were told the Department was going to do the devil and all, but it was not done and we are where we are now. The legislation might speed up appeals a bit, but if we keep giving the same piece of paperwork to the same drummer instead of a guitar player, we will have the same problem.