Dr. Karl Richards:

I will home in on that point. In order to fell a forest, one needs a licence. That licence usually involves a replanting obligation. The big question is that where we have these peat soils with forest on top of them, there are actual tree stumps under most of them already because the bog developed from the forest when it was clear-felled a long time ago. The question that arises - and I do not know the answer to it - is: what is the optimal management for those? Do they continue, even when one has felled the forest, to be a carbon source because one may not be able to rewet them? Would one be better having some sort of continuous cover? Does one fell them? All of these are questions that the forestry service and Coillte are teasing out at the moment.

I do not believe that one can get a licence for establishing a Sitka spruce forest on acid-sensitive bog peat soils. I do not believe one has been able to do that since the early 2000s as it has been outlawed. I would hope, and if Mr. Ó Brolcháin is right that should be looked at, but I do not honestly believe that one can get a licence for afforestation on those soils because it will not pass the environmental impact assessment.