Mr. Simon White:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for the invitation to explain why the recently announced ash dieback scheme, which the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Senator Pippa Hackett, and her Department officials are promoting as the final solution to ash dieback, is inequitable and unworkable. I will introduce our representatives and give a brief introduction as to where we are now. I will explain the difference between the independent ash dieback report recommendations, and what is in the scheme the Department have come up with in response.

The scheme was designed without discussion with stakeholders, of whom the growers are the most important group. At the first meeting of the task force, the Minister's appointed chairman, the assistant secretary, Mr. Paul Savage, stated the new scheme was not designed to solve the problem by implementing the recommendations of the review, but that they had allocated a sum of money and that was the end of it. The Department then fit what had to be done within that budget. Since it is impossible to pay for what has been recommended by the review, the result has been that large numbers of affected ash growers have been arbitrarily excluded from the scheme and it has been falsely promoted that the reconstitution of those left eligible to apply for the scheme can be achieved. The chairman was adamant that not another penny was going to be spent on the scheme and that the task force's job was to confine its scope within the parameters already clearly defined.

The vast majority of stakeholders invited to partake in this task force expressed the view that it is not possible to accomplish the tasks set out within such a restricted framework. This initiative is doomed to fail, as every other initiative the Department's forest service has come up with to deal with the ash dieback has failed before. I will explain why this is and will show what is needed to provide equity, reinstate these dead forests and rebuild confidence in growing trees on private land.

This is LTWO's fifth time presenting to the committee, as leading representatives of the ash plantation owners throughout an unnecessary prolonged crisis since 2019. We are very sorry that we have to come back before the committee as members must be as frustrated as we are by the way the crisis has been mismanaged for so long. The committee has expressed this frustration previously, it should have been dealt with before and we are sorry to be back. We are grateful to the committee members from across all political divides for their understanding and continuing support. For those new to the committee, I will give a little background and apologies to those who are already aware.

Ash dieback is an imported disease that should never have been allowed onto this island on infected plants. There is an onus on the State to provide assistance to those affected. It is a unique position in forestry that owners of land planted in trees are compelled by law to keep their land under trees no matter what catastrophe affects them. The complete loss of such commercial crop, as well as inefficient means available to deal with this loss, has created an urgent crisis that has enormous implications for the future of forestry in Ireland. It has awoken awareness of the increased vulnerability of trees to diseases, especially in this time of climate change. From the early 1990s, farmers were strongly encouraged by the forest service and the Minister at that time, to grow ash for profit. It was promised that forestry was on an equal footing with all other major agricultural enterprises, with equal support and advice. Those who planted ash were assured that the protection from diseases was the Minister's responsibility and would be looked after by the forest service. Those who devoted their land to growing trees, especially ash for hurley making, would reap attractive benefits, which would be equivalent to a substantial pension and a business to hand on to subsequent generations. The State support promise came to nothing and those who were pioneers in growing trees commercially in this country, were left high and dry as the ash crisis evolved.

Ash growers are very angry and rightly so. The official response to the disease killing our ash trees has been misguided and poor throughout all of the past 12 years since it was imported. As soon as problems arise, the forest service changes the rules and the support for growers disappears. This is recognised across the industry as a major cause of the erosion of all farmer confidence in growing trees. The essential elements of what the independent review recommended in resolving what it describes as this ongoing national emergency are: first, the cost of site clearance and regeneration should be borne by the State, with any residual value from the timber remaining with the landowner. The current clearance grants of €2,000 per hectare, excluding VAT, appeared reasonable in the main, but additional exceptional costs should be considered for particularly challenging sites. Second, the cost of replanting must be covered by the State. A bespoke ash dieback re-establishment annual payment is required. The payment should be consistent with the general rates available under the new forestry programme. All ash growers must be eligible for all schemes under the new forestry programme. Lastly, the Department should explore the potential for a once-off ex gratia payment to be paid to each landowner as recognition of the absence of an effective scheme between 2018 and 2023.

The scheme that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine forestry service put to the Government and sanctioned is actually a pretence of implementing these recommendations and I shall explain how this is the case. The clearance grant in the scheme is restricted to €2,000 per hectare, without alluding to the recognition that it can cost a hell of a lot more. The actual cost, as recognised by the reviewers, ranges from €2,000 per hectare for very young sites, which are relatively easy to clear and prepare, to more than €7,000 per hectare for older plantations that require specialist machinery because of health and safety issues dealing with large, dangerous tree felling and the significantly more timber handling involved. This means that there is a serious shortfall in money allocated to accomplish clearing and site preparation. While the cost of replanting is covered in the scheme, the cost of completely different ongoing management and maintenance to establish these new plantations, taking into account the likely plant failure rates in re -establishment, is not covered, leaving another serious financial shortfall. Whereas it is claimed by the forest service that all ash growers are eligible for all schemes under the new forestry programme, this is not so. They are ineligible for the premium elements in those schemes, which are what make them a viable option to anyone considering applying for them. Land has a value based on its ability to generate annual income and its potential range of uses. Under this scheme, the land under these replanted ash plantations is rendered incapable of providing any income for as long as it takes the trees to grow to maturity. Because the landowner is compelled to retain the land under trees, there is no alternative potential land value, no use. Therefore, the scheme renders this land worthless to the owner but of significant value to the State. This is a land grab by stealth, and forest owners end up prisoners of the State on what used to be their own land.

The one thing that the designers of this scheme can be commended on was that they came up with an innovative method of paying for losses by use of a climate action performance payment, CAPP. However, the amounts being given under this payment are inequitable. Growers with ash were prevented from salvaging healthy ash trees, which compounded their losses between 2018 and 2021, because of rules set by the forest service and the fact that the service was in total disarray with a licence backlog. This payment was recommended to compensate for this compounded loss to growers. However, the method of "one fix fits all" is inappropriate because this loss is dependent on the age of the trees. Whereas a €5,000 payment may be deemed acceptable to people with young trees, an equitable comparative amount based on age is different, as is presented in the table we have provided. For plants of nought to ten years, €5,000 per hectare is okay. However, for ten to 20-year-old plants, €10,000 per hectare would be more like it. For plants of 20 to 30 years it should be €15,000 per hectare. For plants of over 30 years, and they are there in large numbers, it should be over €20,000 per hectare.

Furthermore, a stunning feature in this plan is that a large percentage of people who have lost ash planted under state aid schemes have been deemed ineligible to apply for this amended scheme. Many people planted substantial blocks of ash as a component of a conifer plantation set aside for biodiversity and they are now suddenly deemed ineligible to apply for this amended RUS scheme. People in this category, who applied for the RUS scheme up to April of this year, were promised that if they did so they would benefit from any future improvements brought in on the scheme. They now find that promise is being denied them. Quite rightly they are seething with anger. The contributions from those invited to partake in the first meeting of the task force identified that 27% of the reduced 15,000 ha of eligible land to apply for this scheme is under 1 ha, and another 25% of the area is over 25 years of age. When the forestry company representatives among the task force were asked if they considered it a viable commercial proposition for them to tender for the work of clearing and replanting these sites under the restricted terms of this scheme, they admitted that it was not worth their while getting involved, as the small plantations and the older plantations are more expensive to clear due to lack of economies of scale and increased health and safety risks respectively. This is a startling revelation. It begs the question as to what now happens to the dead plantations that are excluded from this scheme and what happens to those that are not worth the while of the professionals expected to carry out the work.