Mr. Simon White:

Workstream 3 in Project Woodland dealt with organisational development within the forest service. The review points to a significant cultural problem within the service. There are many really talented and dedicated personnel in the service ranks who have enormous potential to turn around the demise in forestry. The cultural malaise appears to be more in the relatively recent direction of the service, where the idea of providing a service and serving customers does not seem to be the priority.

Dead ash plantation owners are not going to sign up to the RUS. The top personnel in the Department's forest service who are advising the Minister and Minister of State appear reluctant to accept the reality that the RUS is dead in the water. It has been so from its inception because it was designed to achieve a set of impossible goals. The needs of the plantation owners affected by the disease were completely omitted. Technical flaws and leadership failures by the State in the introduction of the RUS led to minimal uptake and further negativity by farmers towards forestry and the Department's forest service. The review points to a better way to solve this problem. We wish to assist and be a part of the solution.

The present focus of the forest service is to forge ahead with promoting the new afforestation schemes, while leaving ash dieback resolution to be dealt with sometime in the future. This approach is fundamentally flawed. Probably the most salient finding in the review is that natural justice would appear to demand state aid for loss of forestry due to disease. It notes that EU policies do not follow this principle. The report further states:

The heightened awareness of woodland disease by farmers arising from the ash Die-back issue brings the State Aid limitations into sharp focus as the State seeks accelerated afforestation to meet Climate targets. Given that forestry objectives in Ireland are heavily dependent on persuading farmers to make a permanent land use change to woodland, this is likely to be a long-term challenge for successive forestry programmes.

The report points out a path for innovative ways to bring about natural justice and recommends doing so. This is something we hope to develop further in the discussions.

The future of Irish forestry rests upon proper implementation of the report's recommendations in full as the immediate priority. We need a straightforward disaster-type response. This must entail a simplified approach, with fast-track permission to clear the trees. We must identify the machinery needed to deal with this task and make sure it is available. The recommended ex gratiaupfront payment is vital to help people badly hit by unnecessary losses caused by the official inaction. Income support payments are vital to help people affected to survive while their plantations grow and restore some of what they had.

We are not alone in holding the opinion that the forestry programme will not succeed until ash dieback is sorted once and for all. If ash dieback is not resolved, the forestry risk issues that came to light with the disease will gain a lot more attention. When landowners seriously assess the risks involved in planting under the new programme's terms and conditions, they will be very slow to sign up to the new schemes. Those with sense will seek legal and family advice. In today's land market, there are many other more lucrative ways of land utilisation that do not entail permanency of land use and the unreasonable responsibility for dealing with the very real risk of disease in afforestation. Landowners look at what has been happening to the 6,500 landowners who planted ash for profit and they see that they are being enticed by similar incentives. Farmers are not fools and the forest service directors should take note of that.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to present the views of the ash plantation owners affected by this disease. We do not pretend to have all the answers but we are willing to help in finding them.