Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 4 October 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion
Mr. Fergus Moore:
We did a quick analysis of our afforestation established between 2017 and 2022. Approximately 77% of the sites that were afforested were on mineral soils. There has been a transition to plant on mineral soils in the most recent forestry programmes. Certainly there will be an impact. If people have peat on their farm, they will be impacted. Generally speaking, most of the lands targeted in the afforestation programme in recent years have been mineral soils. Some soils do have 30 cm or less of peat. This amounts to approximately 11% or 12% of the afforestation plots that we sampled in the most recent programme.