Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Kehoe made the point that people have been cutting down certain tree species for years. The culture is changing. It needed to change and we need to encourage it to change. We also need to make it as smooth and amenable as possible for those who want to plant. In terms of small-scale afforestation, we need to encourage native trees and native tree plantations. We can all envisage an addition to the countryside if we were to see, for example, more riparian zones alongside waterways. That could be beneficial for the visual aspect of the countryside and, importantly, could also be beneficial for biodiversity and water quality. That is something farmers are increasingly open to doing. Small-scale plantations of native trees up to 1 ha can have a benefit from the point of view of biodiversity so that is why we put a lot of thought into whether this would be possible and amending the legislation around this.

Following on from this, if the committee and the Oireachtas decide to support providing a legal basis for such a scheme, we would proceed to develop such a scheme and engage with all representatives and those with expertise on this to ensure it is a scheme that works well and is as effective and practicable as possible for those who want to plant trees. We would also look at an appropriate mechanism for incentivising and rewarding those who do that.

This is entirely separate from afforestation targets for commercial forestry, which will be really important from a climate, emissions reduction and sequestration perspective. It will also be really important in changing behaviour and materials usage in wider society over the next number of years, particularly in construction. We will need to have the wood material if we are to displace some of the more emissions-intensive materials used at the moment and central to that is having the plantations. We have a lot of work to do and getting to 8,000 ha will be really important alongside that. This in itself is a very worthy initiative. There is no crisis or emergency around it. It is just something we think is a really worthy objective, which is why we looked at trying to bring it in as promptly as we can so that the scheme could be put in place and farmers who want to avail of it can get on with that. This is why we sought the committee's discretion to be able to include it in this Bill so we could consider it together, move it along and give it further consideration on Committee and Report Stages, as it goes through the Seanad and, ultimately, in enabling the scheme to be introduced after that, working really closely with the sectoral representatives, interests and stakeholders regarding the structure of this scheme.