Mr. Mark Carlin:

In 2020, we were still working out afforestation and how Coillte would get into afforestation at that stage. We have talked about a preferred model and state aid challenges. It was only last April that we announced 100,000 ha of forestry in terms of afforestation targets. We would have been putting down twin tracks at the same time. We would have been looking at the models to allow us to even do afforestation because we could not have gone out with a target of what we would do until we knew broadly how we could attempt to do it in the near term. It was only in April last year that we announced that our ambition would be 100,000 ha of forest.

It is important also to know that the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund and, indeed, Nature Trust will only be a small part of that overall initiative of 100,000 ha and the €2 billion that the Deputy is quoting, because there will be many other initiatives as we go through the next 30 years. There will be opportunities opening up for us to do different things and there will be some new challenges as well.

When we were here on the previous occasion, there was a discussion around the 100,000 ha and the fund and I think they were put together. The intention is not to do 100,000 ha with this fund. This is merely one of the many initiatives that will be needed. That is an important clarification.