Mr. Fergus Moore:

Carbon modelling in forestry is quite complex. A lot of things can happen that make a forest either a sink or a source depending on the age distribution of forests. As the Deputy points out, one thing we can do is order the management. If we delay the felling of trees and reduce the harvesting, we reduce the emissions and we could then increase the carbon store in a forest. There has also been discussion of a no-thin policy, where there would be no thinning, which would also increase the level of carbon stores in a forest.

From the Department's perspective, these are options to consider in the context of a voluntary carbon market and what additional measures a forest owner can take to improve the carbon stock in his forests. That is something which can be explored further. If a forest owner decides to fell his trees a bit later, for example, and delays the thinning or harvesting of most of the trees, he would build up a greater carbon store than he currently has. There may be a possibility of him putting a value on that in a voluntary compliance market.

The Department issues a decision support tool for farmers on changing the felling regime in their forests. For example, the Department's website has a felling decision support tool. This allows people to ask what cash they would get from a timber sale where, for example, they fell their trees at 30 years of age. If they leave them as they are and delay felling until they are 40 years of age, the trees will have grown bigger and become more valuable. The felling decision support tool we have tells us what the optimum time is to fell trees, purely on a commercial basis. That is an initiative the Department has taken to empower farmers to make those decisions themselves. The Department does not foresee that it would restrict people's ability to fell trees at a certain age and, likewise, with thinning. All sorts of issues are important. Thinning produces timber for the sawmill sector, and it is important that it is kept supplied as well. Reducing the harvesting age of trees also reduces the amount of timber that is going into the mills. They are important points to take on board.

Ash dieback is very important. I know the committee has discussed the matter several times with my colleagues. When trees die or are blow down, there are emissions associated with that. We do not see major impacts on our national inventory because we measure the carbon across 770,000 ha. In the greater scheme, we are not seeing a massive difference because even when trees are dying or are dead, they are still storing carbon, so it does not come through in our figures that much at the moment.

There are different management options. That was part of the discussion. It is not all about afforestation. Afforestation is great for putting in carbon dioxide, but adjusting management techniques can impact the carbon stocks and stores as well. The suggestion from Teagasc and others was that there are other things besides afforestation that we should probably consider in terms of how we increase the level of carbon removals in the atmosphere.