Mr. Simon White:

The Deputy is asking me if I have confidence. At the moment, we cannot even get these people to discuss it, let alone have confidence in what they are doing. They will discuss it with schoolchildren. They will discuss it with everybody but the people who are growing the trees and who are going to do it. It is, therefore, very difficult to say that I have confidence. I have hope. I have desperate hope because I have great confidence in the people of Ireland and groups like this committee in our political institutions. We need political direction. We need strong leadership to move this forward. The knowledge is there; we just have to put the resources into doing it. Never have we needed it more in the history of the State than we do now, with climate change breathing down our necks. Trees have the ability to mitigate against the emissions from agriculture. We are an agricultural country. Everything we do has a cost environmentally but speaking as an environmental scientist, we have to find solutions to it. We have a solution in front of our faces in growing trees and yet those in charge of it cannot seem to see it.