Mr. Simon White:

It is understandable because the Department is administering fewer and fewer schemes. It is supposed to be planting 8,000 ha per annum but if only 2,000 ha or 1,600 ha are being planted, the administration costs per hectare will be an awful lot higher, and that is what is happening. If the Department was doing its job and enticing people to grow trees, it might be more efficient. It has become completely inefficient. The Secretary General of the Department, Mr. Brendan Gleeson, stated at the committee relatively recently that people were not taking up the schemes and were not being enticed to do so, and that there was nothing the Department can do about that. It is the job of the Department to make the schemes attractive enough for people to take up. There is something wrong there and it needs to be looked into.