Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 20 October 2020
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Challenges for the Forestry Sector: Discussion
Mr. Simon White:
That is the point I want to make. I am a research scientist, so I have some experience in research. The amount of research that is going on into propagating disease-resistant trees is tiny. Nothing has been found. It is like finding a vaccine for Covid-19. Everybody is talking about how lovely that would be, but it is not there yet. It has not been found, no effort under way and no nurseries are growing disease-resistant trees now. Such disease-resistant trees have not been found, so to rely on that is a little bit premature. The trees that we grow, therefore, must be different trees from ash trees.
Regarding the form of compensation, no form of compensation has been put forward to anybody affected by ash dieback. We need-----