Mr. Mark Carlin:

Senator Daly asked about the 16% of licences that are available. To be clear, what we have right now for 2021, licensed and available, is 16%. In terms of the various sources of volume, there are 700,000 cu. m in FAC under appeal, which is approximately 25% of our normal supply. There is a further 25% that is licensed, but just 16% is available. Some material is licensed but unavailable for various reasons. It could need a road permit or there could be other restrictions on it. It is important that our entire annual basket of timber is licensed at the end of the year so that we can bring a full supply to our customers and the sawmills and restore equilibrium to the market. The remaining 50% is to be licensed by the end of the year so members will note the challenge ahead.

The major operations for which we need afforestation licences are felling, thinning and road construction. There are some, but not many, afforestation licences held up in the system. Our reforestation programme is essentially wrapped up in the felling licence and the licence for harvesting.

The question on ash dieback is certainly an interesting one with regard to clones. We would rather use native Irish stock and we are trying to do that.

We have identified three provenances here in Ireland with which we are working and will continue to do so. Our options are limited because ash dieback has been so devastating to our ash here in Ireland and we are, of course, also looking across Europe. The most important aspect of this is to get ash provenances that are resilient to ash dieback. We will then have to bring in a good variety of provenances to see which respond to Irish conditions and grow best. We need to keep our options open. The number one target has to be to deal with the ash dieback situation.

Turning to the Mackinnon report, I spent a lot of with Mr. Jim Mackinnon when he was in Ireland and reviewing afforestation here. He is an extremely knowledgeable person. He spoke to the stakeholders of the entire industry and the report is good and comprehensive. I know we are tight on time but I will draw out a couple of recommendations I think are key. The first is about land and land availability. We have to tackle that problem and have a good land use strategy for the country for what we should be doing with our land. Second, we need a strategy for forestry, going forward. We must look forward in terms of the balance and what we want to do with land for forests and what we want from our forests. Allied to that strategy is a good forestry policy for the next programme which needs to be enshrined in effective regulation. That is certainly one of the things that is impacting on confidence at the moment. It is hard to say that one is going to invest in forestry over 30 or 40 years while not being entirely sure what one is going to get at the other end. Bringing greater confidence through smart regulation would be a big benefit.

I think I have dealt with the majority of the questions. I will respond to the question about the Department and what it is saying to us about the crisis. We are engaged on a daily and weekly basis with the senior officials in the Department. They are clear on the numbers. We have a clear dashboard in terms of what we need from licences and roads and what the current supply shortages are with our customers and sawmills. The Department is certainly getting full communication from us on exactly what supply we have and what we need.