Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody for what has been a fascinating meeting today. Much has been covered. I sometimes wonder how different policies might be if birds could vote. It is great to hear Ms Duggan say it is an exciting time because when we look through the list of species that have moved from green to amber and amber to red, it feels a little overwhelming, to say the least.

It is great to hear that results-based schemes are having an impact. What more can be done around that? Are we looking at pure investment at this stage to support farmers? I suppose the same would apply to peatlands.

Continuous cover is the gold standard but what are we talking about for silver standard, for example? Sometimes that can get left out but perhaps it will come out in the wash with Project Woodland. What could be suggested that will get us some way there, although it might not be the gold standard of what we are looking for in forestry? We are in a crisis with forestry, from production and felling through to biodiversity.

Mr. Purser mentioned that this is not so much to do with the type of forestry but how it is processed and the soil. Does he have any comments to make about soil and the kind of investment we need to make in soils in order to ensure forestry is doing the best job it can? I know organics have been mentioned.

Many of the questions for Dr. Farrell have been covered but one of the concerns we have as a committee is how fast this can happen in order to get us to where we need to be climate-wise when we are looking at sequestration. I thank the witnesses and I am very conscious of the time left.