Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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We have apologies received from Senator Daly.

Before we start, I wish to bring to the committee's attention that witnesses giving evidence within the parliamentary precinct are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee. This means a witness has full defence in any defamation action of anything said at a committee meeting. However, witnesses are expected not to abuse this privilege and may be directed to cease giving evidence on an issue at the Chair's discretion. Witnesses should follow the direction of the Chair in this regard and are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that, as is reasonable, no adverse commentary should be made against an identifiable third person or entity.

Witnesses giving evidence from a location outside the parliamentary precinct should note they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as witnesses giving evidence from within the parliamentary precinct and may consider it appropriate to take legal advice on the matter. Privilege against defamation does not apply to the publication by witnesses outside of the proceedings held by the committee of any matter arising from the proceedings.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against either a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Parliamentary privilege is considered to apply to the utterances of members participating online in a committee meeting when their participation is from within the parliamentary precincts. Members may not participate online in a public meeting from outside the parliamentary precinct. Any attempt to do so will result in the member having their online access removed.

The agenda for today's meeting is the ash dieback and other forestry issues. The committee will hear from the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with special responsibility for forestry, farm safety and horticulture, Deputy Healy Rae. The Minister of State is accompanied by the following officials: Mr. Paul Savage, assistant secretary general; Mr. Barry Delany, director of forestry; Mr. Seamus Dunne, senior forestry inspector; and Mr. Robert Mooney, head of the forestry division.

I remind members, witnesses and the Minister of State that we will direct our questions to the Minister of State who I will now allow five minutes to give his opening statement before we go ahead with questions and answers.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Chair and committee members for the good work they do on this Oireachtas committee. As a rural-based TD, the work going on here on a regular basis is very important and I thank everyone for that. I thank the committee for the invitation to speak here about ash dieback and other matters, which I consider important to the forestry industry in Ireland.

For the past 100 years, we have been creating new forests in Ireland and keep building on this legacy with our current forestry strategy and programme. We have gone from 1% forest cover in the early 1900s to nearly 12% today, the highest it has been in more than 350 years. Forests are essential to the future of Ireland and its economy. The supply of sustainable raw materials for our timber industry provides the basis for much employment and job opportunities. I have seen these jobs myself in recent months when going to saw mills and other places, such as the factories which make boards for export. More than 85% of those boards are produced in factories here and then exported. It is great to see the lorries going from our forests to these factories and turning it around into a product for export. This gives us sustainable jobs that keep families going in money every week. This is good, especially in rural areas, with nearly 9,500 employed in the industry nationally and the sector contributing €2 billion to our economy.

Forests are also essential to the maintenance of biodiversity and are becoming increasingly important for species. They are also good places for recreation which in turn supports our health and well-being. Forests make a huge contribution to our climate by removing CO2 from the atmosphere, allowing us to store carbon in wood products and provide renewable substitutes for our fossil fuel and energy intensive materials.

I am determined to continue growing our forestry sector to provide attractive financial incentives to plant trees. Our current forestry programme is allocated a total budget of €1.3 billion, which is the largest investment in tree planting in the history of the State. In addition to the afforestation scheme, the programme includes 14 schemes to manage existing forests. It provides essential training and promotes sustainable forest management. I will continue to work with all stakeholders to improve our supports and I am currently undertaking a mid-term review of the forestry programme this year. While Ireland's forests are in relatively good health, there have been challenges, including ash dieback disease, which has had a significant impact on forest owners. The need for support in this regard has been well recognised by successive Governments, including this one. Since 2013 more than €21 million has been paid for site clearance and replanting of ash forests, covering an area of 4,500 ha.

Under the new forestry programme, clearance grants and have been doubled and replanting grants have also been increased. An additional €79.5 million is now available under the climate performance action payment to pay €5,000 per hectare to ash plantation owners. This brings the financial package available to more than €230 million. Other challenges for the sector include the damage from recent storms. An assessment carried out jointly by Coillte and the Department indicated a total of approximately 25,900 ha had been blown down, with just over 11,500 ha of private forest affected and the rest being forests owned by Coillte.

Our response has included the setting up of a wind-blown task force in order to prioritise mobilisation of the wind-blown material to facilitate the importation of machines to help with the harvesting efforts. I am very proud to say to the committee that today, as we speak, 95% of the harvesting equipment in Ireland is working in forests, salvaging the timber that was wind blown, taking it to the sawmills, putting it to good use and delivering a payment to the affected farmers.

More than half of the wind-blown trees have both a felling licence and a road licence, allowing them to be harvested immediately. My Department is now urging those who have not yet applied to do so. I am also exploring the introduction of a reconstitution scheme and I can assure forest owners who carry out clearance or replanting now, that they will not be disadvantaged in the implementation of any such scheme.

I know this is very important to the committee so I want to again urge safety. Unfortunately, we have had a large number of farm accidents in the last six months in particular. I urge any person who is engaging responsible contractors to be responsible about what they are doing. Dealing with wind-blown sites means there is danger involved. I cannot emphasise the safety element enough.

These responses are part of our work to set the course for a renewed future for forestry in Ireland. We have approved an additional 4,500 ha that are now available for planting under the afforestation schemes. We acknowledge that the decision to plant trees is one for private landowners, most of whom are farmers. We know that this is influenced both by economic return and cultural attachment to the land. We have ensured that forestry delivers a strong economic return for farmers through the attractive rates in the current programme. It is an activity that is complementary to other farming activities. We have improved the licensing system, with the majority of applications now being processed within agreed farmers' charters timelines. We have the capacity to issue sufficient afforestation licences to meet our annual targets of 8,000 ha.

Regarding the licensing, I was here with many members of the committee in the past fighting about and complaining about the length of time it was taking to process licences. I can assure the committee that of all of the forests that are knocked at the moment 65% had a licence. We merged the thinning licences with the felling licences, which was a great help. This really affected people working on the ground in a positive way. This was what I would call a political and departmental decision that was good and sound. The farmers are benefitting from that now. There is also the fact that the committee can be confident that our excellent people, working in the licensing processing unit, have the capability to approve licences within six months.

Delivering these targets will require a collaborative approach and a shared responsibility between Government at all levels, our agencies, forest stakeholders and the people of Ireland. As farmers and foresters are the custodians of our land, they will be at the centre of our renewed programme of engagement in the coming years, supporting the cocreation of effective forest policies and schemes that meet the needs of everyone.

I hope that the committee members will find our debate today helpful. Our focus is the growing of more timber and ensuring that farmers and landowners will have money going into their pockets. We will be planting trees for our own use and, very importantly, for export in the future.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I am very conscious of the importance of the forestry sector and of the issue of ash dieback. We are seeing it on our own doorstep, whether it is Humphrey Lynch making coffins or Adhmaid Cill na Martra making the stakes, the harvesting crews and the haulage crews. Of course, landowners are involved in the planting and the pallet manufacturing. That is just on my immediate doorstep. I am pretty sure that most members have a similar situation on their own doorsteps. It is a vital sector and we really want to make sure it is delivering both from an environmental point of view and an economic point of view. Members have a range of questions, principally focused on the ash dieback but also on the wider sector. We have enough time to do ten minutes per member, with questions back and forth. We will start with Senator Boyhan.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I welcome the Minister of State and congratulate him on his appointment. By all accounts and from reports I get from people in Agriculture House, he is working morning, noon and night, which is very positive. I am sure the officials are exhausted. I welcome them here today also. I have a few comments and one or two questions that I do not think will require ten minutes, but I will do it as quickly as I can.

We all know that we need a sustainable forestry sector that can achieve commercial, climate and biodiversity targets. That is a given. We know the commitments in the programme for Government. We know that the Minister for State has special responsibility in this area. There is a focus that we want a reduction in the volume of timber we import and I know the Minister of State is committed to that. He touched on some of these issues today.

We want to actively pursue timber options for the construction of new homes. The Minister of State may or may not have heard Marie Donnelly, who is chairperson of the Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC, on RTÉ this morning. She spoke about the potential in Scotland, which has a very similar, wet climate to Ireland's and the very high percentage of timber being grown there and being used in the construction industry. We have a challenge here in relation to that. I printed the transcript from "Morning Ireland" this morning and I recommend that the Minister of State's officials do the same. Ms Donnelly raised very important issues. I will leave the Minister of State with one line from her interview on "Morning Ireland" this morning. She said, "The Government needs to ensure the availability of instruments, including taxation, regulation and incentives to be put in place to enable farmers to make the necessary changes." It is important that we incentivise people, not penalise them and I know the Minister of State is committed to that. I ask him to touch on that in his response.

The Minister of State mentioned the licensing issue. We have to continue to work to improve the current licensing systems, which are holding people back. We have had great debate on this and Mr. Delany has been here before. The idea of merging the thinning licences and the felling licences was a good one, which I am glad to hear about.

I have suggested this before but I will do so again. I think the time has come for the establishment of a national forestry development agency. Forestry is one of the few natural resources we have in the country that does not have a dedicated agency. We have the Department of agriculture and Coillte as a State agency is involved in licensing, planting, acquisition of lands, disposal of lands and a number of other things.

There should be the establishment of a national forestry development agency. Why not? It can be removed. That is what is needed. I am supportive of the synergy between the private sector and the farmers, including small farmers, in forestry, as I am of Coillte. We have to make sure there is always balanced and equal opportunity and fairness of hand and approach. However, I am making a call here today and asking the Minister of State if he would explore, with his political colleagues, the development of a national forestry development agency. There is a lot of sense in that and in bringing the experts together.

Touching on ash dieback, I am calling for the introduction of a roadside ash tree removal grant. It is all over the place in Britain. The Minister of State will be familiar with the hedge cutting scheme in Cork, which is only €50 per metre. There is a scheme, however. There is a lot of ash dieback all over the country. Local authorities are best placed to administer this scheme because the reality is they can do road traffic management, which is really important. We have got to take down ash dieback in some way. Transportation is a difficulty. The burning of this product is another problem because there are restrictions on burning. However, we have to be bold and imaginative in how we are going to tackle this. I was speaking to a councillor in Galway today who told me there were councillors there who were using their motion money to subsidise hedge cutting. This is a real issue.

I will finish on this. There is a need for a serious look to be taken at the Department's slight remove from forestry. There is a need to develop a forestry development agency. I would like the Minister of State's feedback on that or at least some commitment that he will bring it to other people in the Department and in government to see whether it can be explored. Would he consider the introduction of a roadside ash tree removal scheme in conjunction with the 31 local authorities?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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With regard to the report on "Morning Ireland" this morning, I would like to answer that first of all in the following way. In Scotland at the moment, they are planting 17,000 ha per year, which is a massive amount of timber. I see our job as being to compete with that. In other words, we want to plant. It is in the programme for Government and it is part of our policy. We want to get to 8,000 ha. We were doing that before. I can tell the Senator from personal experience because my brother Danny and I would have been involved in that work an awful lot in the 1980s and 1990s at a time when Ireland was hitting 8,000 ha, 9,000 ha and more in planting. Now, we are falling behind, but we have doubled what we were doing last year. We are getting progressively better because of the quicker licensing and the new programme we have.

The Senator talked about incentivising. I would say to both him and the person he cited that €1.3 billion into any sector in the period between 2023 and 2027 is a massive amount of money, and that is where this forestry programme is at present. There is a lot of money and there are a lot of schemes. There are a variety of schemes that were not there in the past. I will give the Senator one example. Agroforestry is something in which I really believe. That is where a farmer might have what we would call good green fields, but maybe he or she does not want to cut hay or silage or have them for grazing. That farmer can continue to avail of the payments he or she has at present. He or she can also come along and plant trees, and can still graze animals around them, but can get the additional payment that will come from that tax free. When we talk about tax initiatives, this Government and, indeed, previous Governments have always ensured that all payments deriving from forestry are tax free.

With regard to incentives, we are doing very well. We have new schemes that were not there before. There are other schemes. For instance, somebody might not like trees at all. We have a new scheme whereby people will be able to plant trees along hedgerows, at the edges of driveways or around sheds and yards and get an attractive payment for up to ten years, and they can do up to 1 hectare, which actually does not need any license. Therefore, there are a vast variety of new incentives. We are doing everything.

Forestry is very positive. If we stand back and look at it over the last number of years, we have had problems in forestry, but one of the biggest problems we have had is people speaking negatively of it. Nobody is putting a gun to anybody's head and telling him or her to plant trees. What we are saying is that it is an alternative for some but not everybody. It does suit some lands but not everybody's land. We are trying to incentivise it, however.

With regard to a new agency, the Senator must understand that, at present, we have a group that is doing excellent work called the timber in construction group. Maybe not everybody knows it is there, but that is a group of people from the industry who are leading in their fields. They are looking at greater use of timber. I will give the Senator a very important example. Last week, my son Jackie and I went to Galway and visited the university. We saw - it is actually frightening to see this - how people there were developing the use of timber so that it could replace steel, in other words, for going high. I have seen the product they are making. I have seen it being put under the stress. It is every bit as strong as steel. Now, the first-----

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I am sorry; I am just conscious of my time, too.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am sorry. Could I just-----

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I appreciate what the Minister of State is saying. I just want to narrow in, as there are only 57 seconds left. I just want a clear "Yes" or "No". Does the Minister of State favour exploring the possibility of a national forestry development agency? If he could answer that in one or two words, that would be great. I also asked about the introduction of a roadside ash tree removal scheme. I just want concise answers to those questions.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will give the Senator a straight answer: "No" to the agency.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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"No" to the national agency.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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That is great; that is clear.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I would love the opportunity to expand on it-----

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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No, that is fine. There is not much more we can say.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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-----but if the Senator wants a straight answer, the answer would be "No".

With regard to the roadside scheme, I am sorry to quote the Roads Act, but I have to because as the Senator knows - this is a great bone of contention in this room when it comes to cutting hedgerows and everything else along the side of the road - it is a fact that, unfortunately, section 70 of the Roads Act 1993 states that the responsibility for what goes on on the side of the road is the landowner's. However, the Senator should look at the money that is being made available. People who have ash dieback have every sympathy in the world from me and the Department, but it is not just sympathy. We have put in money to match that. I cited in my opening statement the amount of money that was available for the ash dieback schemes.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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That is okay.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is not as though we are sending people off and telling them they must manage by themselves. There is money for them.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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Okay.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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With regard to a specific scheme, there are 100,000 km of roadway that could be affected by this. The Senator might do the sums himself. If we had a specific scheme, that would not be practical.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State very much.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I welcome the Minister of State. I am going to do quickfire yes-no straight questions. I had a few queries lately that were resolved, and I thank Mr. Dunne for that.

The Minister of State or any of his officials can take this. Europe has stated that there is no planting obligation once someone has cut his or her trees. Is that correct or not?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is incorrect. With regard to the State rules we have, the answer is that is incorrect.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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That is lovely because there were reports during the week. The Minister of State is aware of that.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am, but what I am aware of are the rules we have here, which state that when people plant land and get financial encouragement to do so, there is an obligation on them to replant that land.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Okay. Why are we one third down in the volume this year of clearfell or felling licences? Why are we one third down, not on the licenses, but on the cubic metres? If we look at what has been issued so far this year and the volume that was issued the year before, there is one third of a difference. Why is that?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We have had different delays in the past, as the Deputy is well aware. We have had different problems with regard to-----

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I am talking about this year. Why are we one third down this year?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am answering the question, if the Deputy will allow me the opportunity. We have had different problems over the last number of years. We are addressing all of those problems. What happened this year is that there were a couple of internal problems earlier this year, which have now been sorted out and about which I would hope the Deputy is aware. We had over 120 applications for different licenses that were held up. Every one of those licenses has now been addressed, sanctioned and issued. Some of them might still not have gone through the process, but they are being worked on because no more than any other application, there could have been difficulties with them.

However, the vast majority of them are worked through and gone through. I thought the Deputy would have known that.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Will a problem arise if we are a third down on volume compared with a normal year? Will mills be short later on if we are a third down now?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. Many of our mills were only operating at 60% capacity. I know that from speaking to mill operators, but they have the ability to deal with the additional windblown material. I will put it the Deputy this way; they are busy enough and will be getting busier because of the fact I stated earlier, which is that, today, 95% of the harvesting equipment in Ireland is working on windblown sites. Our hauliers are delivering that timber to our sawmills and they are working very effectively together.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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It was alarming to see figures indicating the volume of timber licences being issued this year was a third down.

On planting, we are at something like 1,540 ha or 1,550 ha being planted this year. That is fair to say.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That is double what we had this time last year.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I am saying it is 5,500 ha or 6,500 ha off our national targets.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is, but will the Deputy acknowledge it is exactly double what we had this day last year?

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Will we know at end of the year whether it will be double?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I deal in the here and now. It is double what we had last year.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I know that there are an awful lot more licences-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is like asking is that half-full or half-empty.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I know an awful lot more licences have been issued. I agree 100% with that, but how long have those licences been issued? Are they for 4,500 ha this year? What is the breakdown back through the years?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We have a backlog of people who have approvals. I will tell the Deputy exactly what I am doing about those. Every one of them is getting phone calls from me personally.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Getting what?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Phone calls. I am saying they have licences that have been approved for particular lengths of time. They are getting calls early in the morning and late at night. I am having very friendly calls with them. I will explain this to the Deputy. Some of them are telling me that personal reasons, family issues and different things that have happened mean they are not able to go ahead at this time. Many of them are saying that there are competing schemes, such as other farm schemes - we must talk about everything in an honest and open way - and they mention prices at the moment for cattle and sheep. Different things are competing and they are happy enough with what they are doing. They are reserving their call on it. Many of them are saying they are not sure yet. Their licences are there and it will last for a certain time, but when I ring them-----

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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How long does it last?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Five years. I am answering their questions. I will be straight with the Deputy. If I am asked a question that I am not able to answer, I get back to them with an answer. It is a tedious operation. There are an awful lot of them. There are 520 people who have a licence, but I am getting through them. It is good for them to hear from a person who is saying that they have a licence and asking whether there is any chance they will think about planting. It is a bit of an operation, but at the end of the day, making contact with people is what it is all about, as is letting them know that the Department has their back.

Further to what the Deputy asked, private felling applications were down before the storm. Many of those things might have been linked to price or other issues. Again, there could be personal family things happening with people that can affect the decisions they are making at any time.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The Minister mentioned something earlier in the year. I saw him on the telly one night when he made it clear that we needed to have more ground, which may not currently be the case under the planting regimes, where planting was allowed. Has any progress been made on that?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The Deputy has a very polite way of putting it. I would very much like to answer that question. I have been maligned an awful lot in that things have been attributed to me that I never said. What has been said about me is that I am interested in planting deep peatland. I never said any such thing. It is a great thing when I look at every one of the members because they know what I am talking about when I speak about this. What I am interested in is planting peat-type soils. Members know the difference. A lot of people, once they hear the word "peat", have this lovely romantic vision of a big, deep blanket of bog where they can come along, dig it out, harvest that, dry it and have it for turf. They think that is what peat is. We have a thing in Ireland, whether a lot of the scientists realise it or not, that I would like to drive home to them. There are peat-type soils. That is a piece of ground one could not burn if one tried forever because one could never dry it out. It is a mix of peat and mineral. I am spending €2.7 million because I am going to prove the point. I would like the Chairman to know this. That scheme is called PeatFor. We are engaging on this now. It is not a bad thing to plant peat-type soils.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Correct.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Again, I appreciate the people I am looking at because they understand this and get it, unlike a lot of other people, including those who misquoted me today. I will tell members exactly who I am talking about. The chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council repeated an inaccuracy, which was that I had said we should plant on deep peat soils. I never said any such thing. What I said in the Seanad was that we should plant and look at planting on peat-type soils. There is an awful difference. I am very glad the Deputy asked me that question.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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To back up what the Minister of State said, at Glenhest, County Mayo - his officials will know it - I remember sawing timber where forestry was planted on it when I was a gossoon. One cannot get a licence to plant there now. Places like that need to be looked at again. I understand fully what the Minister of State said about not planting on deep peat, but we need to look at areas that were plantable before, besides deep peat. We need to be able to do that if we want to reach the level of hectares we want to plant. I agree with the Minister of State 100%.

The Minister of State mentioned that someone - I think the Minister of State said it was Mr. Seppi Höna - was going down to Cloonbonniffe to look at the depth of peat-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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At Gortaganny.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Was progress made from on him going to look at that? Mr. Dunne might be able to answer through the Minister of State.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, he did. He is an excellent person. As the Deputy knows, his head is on the right way around and-----

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Has a decision been made on whether that-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is being looked at at the moment. We will keep the Deputy informed about that.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State. That is all I have to say.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We thank the Deputy for his concern about it.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State and his officials for attending and for all their work on all of this. I will get to the point on a number of the issues. The key discussion today is about ash dieback and the impact it has had. The Minister of State mentioned the climate performance action payment of €5,000 per hectare to ash plantation owners. Is that for clearing the timber that is there and replanting it?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. If the Deputy did his sums and figured it out, it could be up to €10,000. I will explain it this way. There are a number of different payments.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Please.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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There is money for clearing it-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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How much?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will add the two of them together. It is double what it was. It was €1,000 and now it is €2,000, but if one adds the money for clearing it to the money for replanting it, and includes the new money, which is up to €5,000 a hectare, one could actually be talking about €10,000 per hectare to the farmers who are affected, which is a considerable payment. It is much better than it was. I would be the first person to come before the Deputy to admit, going back to 2013 when the whole problem started, that if we could turn the clock back, we would 100% do things differently. Were there mistakes, delays and different things that happened? One hundred per cent there were, but I would like to think that now it is positive. Now it is the case that there is an awful lot of money for people who have not come forward when they do come forward. I think €3.4 million was paid out in the past five or six months. We are addressing the problem now in a very proactive way.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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The first cases of ash dieback were found near where I live, in a hedgerow near Ballinamore, County Leitrim. Since then, it has spread throughout the entire country.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Was that in 2013?

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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No, it was before that, I think.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Sorry. It was 2012.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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The people who were affected by that, in the years afterwards, were fighting with the Department to try to get something to happen, to try to resolve the issue, etc. What is the position of those people now?

They applied before and found the schemes they applied for came nowhere near what was adequate. What should they do now? Is the Minister of State saying they have to reapply?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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They can come to the Department now and get the additional payment of €5,000 per hectare, which is considerable, given that they thought they had been left behind and that what they got was all they could get.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Is the €5,000 per hectare for tree planting?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, because they-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State said there was €2,000 for clearance.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I said it is €5,000 between clearance and replanting, but now there is an additional €5,000 that they can claim.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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It is €10,000 per hectare now.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That is correct. However, I want to make clear - and this is probably one of the most important questions that could be asked today - as some people felt they had been left behind and that what they got was all they were getting, that is not a fact now. They can get additional moneys now, up to €5,000 per hectare. I want those people to come forward to the Department and we will do everything we can to assist them.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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It is important we get clarity. The Minister of State is saying that people who applied in the past and got the initial payment, which was not adequate and they found they had been hugely short-changed - they had cleared 20 ha of forestry and found they were debt because of that - can get an additional €5,000 for the hectares they cleared in the past.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That is absolutely correct. I will elaborate. I ask for indulgence because this is an important question. What about people who never came forward at all? I am inviting those people to please come forward because there is money for them. The scheme is available and I want those people to be compensated for their loss. Many of them are the Deputy's constituents who he is talking about. This was their pension. It was what they put their hearts and souls into and it was to fund them in later life. The Department has their backs, up to €10,000 per hectare if they have not done anything and up to €5,000 per hectare if they have done something.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Another issue is that many of those people could not replant their land for ten years because there was no scheme which was efficient enough for them to do so. They have therefore lost ten years. That is another aspect that needs to be considered.

When people go to replant, what kind of trees can they plant? They cleared a hardwood. Do they have to plant a hardwood in its place or can they plant other timbers instead?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Under the available schemes they could plant conifers or go down the road of agri-forestry. They can use any of the schemes we have to come under the approval umbrella. To be honest-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Could they restore the land to arable farmland?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. I am sorry that is the answer. Everything the Deputy has asked so far-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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That is the case even though it is good land.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It was planted in the first instance. The answer to everything the Deputy has asked so far today is "Yes", except to his last question. Unfortunately, the answer to that is "No".

I will respond further to something the Deputy said. What about the people who lost their land for the past ten years? We must remember that the payment of €5,000 per hectare, which is an additional payment, is tax free, and rightfully so. If they had 20 ha that is €100,000 tax free.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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However, they will spend it on replanting it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. That is a separate grant.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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They still have to spend it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, they do not. If members think they have to spend the second €5,000, they do not. The initial €5,000 was to clear the land and replant it.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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It would not cover that.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am afraid the Deputy is talking to a person who drives machines and works in this type of-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I cut turf and drove machines too.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am not taking from the Deputy.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Many of us have done that around here.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We will ask Danny Healy-Rae about it and have a debate. I will put it this way. The Deputy is missing the point. The second €5,000 is for the farmer's use.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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There is no premium for them initially for the replanting.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, the €5,000 is the-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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There is no upfront payment.

I will move on to the huge problem we have in my part of the country with the windblow since Christmas. A lot of forestry was blown down. A lot of it has been granted licences. Some had licences already. Many have been issued licences since. There are still some problems in getting licences for people where various objections have been lodged and different things. However, the part that is a problem is that I have come across several people who had forests that were not mature trees. They were planted perhaps 15 to 20 years ago. The value of them is low. They were probably ready for thinning or a little past that. They have been blown down. With a clearfell licence, they will not get any price for the timber. They are the people who have a serious problem because people who have mature timber, even if it is windblown and will cost a little more to harvest, can at least get a decent price. Can anything additional be done for the people in the other category?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The Deputy's question is well put and factual. There is an age for trees, where the value of the timber is such that, if the cost of taking it out and bringing it to the sawmills is taken into account - it is not heavy enough to be blunt about it - those people are in more trouble than people-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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It is only pulp timber.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Exactly. The Deputy knows the difference between pulp and boxwood. There is an awful difference in the sawmills. The Deputy is 100% correct that those people have a disadvantage. He asked whether I have anything more for them. The honest answer is "No". There is no-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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Will the Minister of State have anything more for them?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. I have to be blunt about it. There will be a reconstitution scheme. We are doing everything we can to support them in every other way. I am relying on the sawmills and I have confidence in them that they will pay the most they can for whatever category of timber it is. However, the Deputy is 100% correct that people whose forestry was light are at a disadvantage. That is a fact.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I ask the Minister of State to reconsider that.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I take on board what the Deputy said because it is a valid point.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I only 50 seconds left. How many hectares of timber are planted in the State at the moment?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is 880,000 ha and 26,000 ha are on the ground, which is-----

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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It is 880,000 ha.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That is correct.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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If I divide that by 9,500 jobs, it makes one job per 92 ha approximately. The point is that in my part of the country many people are negative about forestry. The reason is that whole parishes and townlands have been wiped out because farm after farm has been planted, not usually by farmers, but by companies which bought the land farmers could not compete for. There is a lot of negativity. People hear there are a lot of jobs in forestry, but they only see one person working in that farm for a week after 20 years, when it is being thinned, and another week ten years later, when it is being thinned again, and then when it is being clearfelled and replanted. They do not see jobs in their communities. That is an issue with forestry and it needs to be recognised. There are many parts of the country, especially in County Leitrim and other parts of the west, where we have had our ample share of forestry and we cannot take more and more land being planted and more and more communities being left in a situation where schools are closing and the community cannot feed a football team because the parishes are being wiped out and destroyed. It is an issue I ask the Minister of State to bear in mind because it is serious and it is causing a lot of opposition to forestry.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Not only am I keeping it in mind, I may be the first person in this position for a long time who invited the people of Save Leitrim to come to talk to me. I met them. I went there. I looked at the situation on the ground. I met landowners on the ground there. I also visited people who are working in the industry there and I take the Deputy's point. However, the most important thing we cannot forget is that if people who own land want to plant trees on it, whether they are individuals or groups, go through the proper applications and processes - there is an appeals system, the forestry appeals committee, FAC, which people use - and finish up with the right to plant timber on it, there is such a thing as people being entitled to do what they want with their land. I appreciate the concerns the Deputy is relaying on behalf of his constituents, but we also have to recognise the freedom of people to use land as they want.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I do not have time to respond to the Minister of State.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I know. I am sorry, but I had to make the point.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I understand.

Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)
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I congratulate the Minister of State on the start he has made. With the recent storm, we have seen one of the greatest disasters that has ever hit the State. It has left two and a half years of timber on the ground. The Minister of State has got off to a very good start in dealing with people and meeting them on the ground, face to face.

Regarding the planting of new forests, I put a proposal to the Minister of State that we would not allow new forests along the edge of roadways. It has now come to my attention that a number of new forests have been mounded, one in Coole only last week. That is a State forest. It is mounded right up to the edge of a road for planting. If we have learned anything, we should at least have a corridor where the forest must stay back from the roads. When those trees grow, they shade the road and they are a hazard when frosty weather comes. If the wind blows, the trees end up on the road. I hope there will be some regulations introduced on that.

One of my colleagues raised this issue. Local authorities are best placed to deal with ash dieback. We cannot ask a farmer to do it, although I know it is the farmer's responsibility. There has to be a bit of joined-up thinking between the Road Safety Authority, the Department of agriculture and the forestry services to come up with a scheme to deal with dangerous trees along roadways, of which there are lots throughout Ireland. The local authority notifies the Department regarding these schemes. There is a cost applied for taking them down. The farmer is certainly entitled to pay some part of that cost. If the cost is placed on the farmer, the first thing he will more than likely do is get in a contractor with a digger who will trek down the road and push the trees into the farmer's field. The council will then be on to him that he is in the middle of the road with a digger and there is a health and safety issue. There has to be a safer way of doing this whole scheme. There has to be a little bit of joined-up thinking between all the parties regarding safety and the ash dieback. I would like the Minister of State to look at that.

We have almost 26,000 ha of windblow. If we got that cleared and planted a quarter of it this year and planted a quarter of it next year, with the 26,000 ha on the ground, we would actually meet our targets if we replanted everything that is wind blown over the next number of years without even looking at any new scheme. I would like the Minster of State's thoughts on that.

Forestry is harvested in this country by weight when it is brought into the sawmills. I want to be correct on this. I am delighted to say that the Glennon Brothers is part of a Longford company that employs Longford people. It is also in Bandon in Cork and Scotland. We are very proud of the company, which sponsors our local GAA club and has supported jobs in Longford. Timber is paid for by weight. In Europe, it is paid for by volume when harvested off the head of the machine. Why are we the only country that does this? It is a very simple matter. The legislation only needs a tweak. I know the Minister of State's officials say it is not. In Europe, it is paid for off the head. We are the only country in the European Union that does not pay for it off the head. I will let the Minister of State in because we need to have an explanation of that.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Senator for his questions because they are very interesting. First of all, on the facts, with regard to the setbacks, for the past 20 years, a 10 m setback has been obligatory for broadleaf and a 20 m setback for conifers has been place for 20-plus years. Anybody going nearer to our roadside than that is breaking those rules and is not operating within the Departmental guidelines. That is the first point.

With regard to the hedges and growth on the side of the roads, be it trees, ash dieback or whatever, I have to state again that is not actually a matter for this Department. That is not me coming in here and passing the buck. Believe it or not, it would be more for the Department of housing because local government comes under that Department. That is the Department that would have to address that. I and the officials in the Department of agriculture cannot actually deal with that issue.

The Senator made a statement that he is proud of Glennon Brothers. I too am very proud of Glennon Brothers, as I am very proud of all of our other people who are creating employment, taking our produce, turning it around and selling it. They are giving employment both locally, and in the case of Glennon Brothers, internationally also. I am extremely proud of what I saw when I visited the company, where I saw the safety measures and massive investment made in new computerised systems, new saws and new ways of dealing with all of the work it does. If we had more of those companies, we would be a better country. That is what I have to say about Glennon Brothers.

With regard to legislation and paying by weight, I have to be very clear on this. The price that is paid for timber is not something that I or the officials in the Department of agriculture can deal with. We cannot get involved in that. When we have been sitting down at meetings with stakeholders in the sector, I have heard this discussion going on. This is now with the wind blow task force. We attend regular meetings of the task force. That has been discussed with regard to optimising the value of the timber for the people who own it, who are the most important people of all - the farmers. The people from the different sectors should take that conversation out of Agriculture House and go across the road to Buswells Hotel or into some room somewhere else and discuss it because it is a matter for them to discuss. I cannot get involved. There is no such as legislating for the price of timber. To make a small, factual correction-----

Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)
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I want to get back in. Regarding the 26,000 ha of fallen trees on the ground, if we got a scheme or compensation package to go back and plant that, we would meet our targets.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, we would not. The 26,000 ha that need to be replanted do not contribute to our reforestation targets because, quite simply, it involves replacement. It was standing one day, it was knocked and it was put standing again. That is not new ground. That is re-establishing what fell. I am sorry but the Senator is incorrect.

Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)
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Regarding farmers competing with forestry companies for land, will the Minister of State comment on that? Food production is a must. If marginal land comes up for sale in north Longford or Leitrim, as Deputy Kenny said, it has a value to companies for meeting their emissions but they are competing with a farmer who is producing food. I would like the Minister of State's comment on that, please.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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You could make the exact same argument about people who today are planting, as I call it, solar farms. We have very good land going to-----

Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)
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That is a different problem now.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is a fact. It is taking land out of productive use and using it for solar farms. Whether it is trees, solar farms or cattle or sheep, that is the market that is out there. You cannot dictate to farmers that they should do this or they have to do that.

Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)
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Should the State compete with a farmer who has productive land?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The State is not competing in that way. We are offering an alternative to people. It is up to the landowner. Neither the Senator nor I will point a finger at a landowner and say they should do this or that with their land. That is not our say. They worked hard to own their land and the people slaved before them to own their farms. It is up to them to decide and whether they opt for a solar farm, have sheep or cattle or plant trees, that is nobody's business but their own.

Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)
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Will there be a scheme for small-scale planting for farmers?

If I want to plant, say, four or five acres will that scheme be there?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, it is there.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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The answer is the scheme is there. I have to let Deputy Newsome Drennan in now.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is not that it will be there. It is there.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for attending. He said, "I am determined to continue growing our forestry sector to provide attractive financial incentives to plant trees." It is hard to sell those schemes to farmers when the risks are high due to storms and ash dieback and there is a low return over a long period. How does the Minister of State plan to address the matter?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy for asking the question because there is a very good answer to it. The schemes that are in place are attractive. I would argue this with the Deputy until the cows come home. People have planted the land in the past and been successful. Of course, one could pick the negative side of it. The Deputy could ask about what if the trees fell down or the forestry went on fire. These things can happen and the Deputy is 100% right, but there are also successful stories where people got a good crop of timber, had perhaps 20 years of a tax-free payment, and got good thinnings, a good clearfell and a good weight into their timber with which they were very happy and it suited them. This is what happens in life. Some people work intensively. Perhaps they have cows, so they love milking cows and rearing calves, or they love fattening sheep and lambing sheep. These are people who love whatever they are doing and it is their land. On the other hand, there are people who, maybe because of medical issues or personal reasons, for example, they might not have youngsters coming up with the same attachment to land as they have, might decide that planting trees is the way for them to go-----

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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On that point, why is the person who inherits the land tied into the scheme? A farmer might plant X amount of land. A son or daughter then takes it over, has the crop and harvests it, yet that son or daughter is tied into having to replant the land.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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That son or daughter is new to the land so should have the option to opt out of the scheme even if he or she has harvested the trees. I do not know what way we would do it, but this issue has to be examined. New landowners should not be tied to what the preceding generation has done. They are the new landowners and they should be able to decide what they want to farm, not the preceding generation. New ways, new people.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I get the Deputy's point, and it was very well made, but, unfortunately, the facts differ from what she might like them to be. In other words, if a person sets aside 20 acres, 50 acres or whatever and decides to plant it, that land is out of productive use. As the Deputy will know, under EU rules that are strongly in place, are coming into place or will be reinforced, a farmer cannot graze animals or cut silage or hay on land that has been afforested and has been approved and paid for to be planted with trees. That land cannot go into production for any other use other than timber in the future.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Did the Minister of State not say earlier that people could plant trees and graze animals underneath?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, that is not the same scheme.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Is that a different scheme?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That was agroforestry. It a different scheme where people can have the best of both worlds.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I still think that new landowners should not be tied to the scheme. They have not bought the land, so it is not like they have gone out, bought a forest and decided to graze animals on the land. Therefore, the scheme needs to be examined. Perhaps the new landowners want to continue with the scheme but they should not have to and the scheme should not be a noose around their necks. They should be able to decide what they want to do with a farm that was bequeathed to them.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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They inherit the decision that was taken by the people before them. The Deputy asked whether that would change. No, it will not. That is the rule and it will not change.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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What are the consequences for a farmer who does not plant land that has lain idle for ten years?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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If a farmer clearfells his or her land and does not replant, then there is an obligation on him or her to replant the land. Farmers signed up for it and part-----

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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They did not sign up for it. Their parents before them signed up for it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Sorry. The new generation-----

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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They did not sign up for it. They did not sign a way out.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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They did but-----

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I ask the Minister of State to please look into this.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It might be looked into in the future, but if the Deputy is asking me to give a commitment today that the rule will change, then I am not giving a commitment that I cannot keep because I go in straight lines-----

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I will keep after the Minister of State on it, so.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes. The point is very well made. My answer is as follows: they inherit the decision that was taken by their mothers, fathers, aunts or uncles before them and they inherit the consequences of that decision.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State said that he was "exploring the introduction of a reconstitution scheme". Can he tell me anything about it? When does he think the scheme will be finalised? Is he committing to people who replant now?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State has now given a commitment that people will be entitled to the reconstitution scheme.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, I absolutely can. I visited a farm the other day in Beaufort where there was windblow that had been extracted, the area was replanted and the person was rightfully taking on board how my Department, my senior Minister, Deputy Martin Heydon, and I gave a commitment a number of months ago that we would have a reconstitution scheme. We will have that scheme. For people who took our word for it and went ahead and replanted, there will be a scheme in place for them. I thank those people for having the courage to come along and say they are going to sell their timber and replant, because they are fulfilling an obligation that is upon them and they are going to have the benefit of that timber again in the future. They will have a reconstitution scheme and when-----

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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When will they know about that?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It will be over the next number of months.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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By the end of-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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What has delayed us is that we cannot talk about a scheme unless we know exactly what is involved. I thank Coillte and all the other agencies that were involved in the mapping. Let me explain the mapping and the 26,000 ha that have been identified. It is not just a matter of thinking it is a certain amount of windblow. The mapping is extremely exact. We now have all of the evidence that shows exactly where the timber was, what size it was and how old it was. The mapping is a very scientific study of the problem. Now that we know the extent of the problem, we are able to determine exactly how much money will be required and what we will be able to do. Of course, we must bow to our friends in the Department of public expenditure and rely on budgetary constraints to allow us to have a proper scheme. All of us in Agriculture House, including the Minister and me, are fighting our corner to make sure that we will be able to deliver upon the commitment that we gave.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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On ash dieback, the Government's support does not come close to what landowners need. Will the extra allocation of €5,000 be backdated to the time when trees fell in the 2012-13 period?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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To 2013 only, not 2012. I ask people to apply now, if they have not done so already.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Is there a deadline for applications for the extra payment?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, the scheme is open now. The Deputy, Deputy Martin and others who asked this question might not realise-----

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I am asking about the allocation and wondering whether the trees down the Minister of State's way were very cheap or something.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Let me finish this point. The question that the Deputy is asking is important because the answer is important. I want the message to go out clearly to people that, if they have had ash dieback and they are not happy with what has happened, I want them to at least contact us to see whether they are in the category of being entitled to more money. The committee does an awful lot of important work, but I want the message to leave this meeting today that there is a fund of money available and many people have not applied for it. If one takes the amount of hectares of trees that were knocked, destroyed or damaged with ash dieback, the number of people who have actually claimed is far short of the amount of ground involved.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Why does the Minister of State think that is? Is the paperwork too complicated? Is there some other-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, it is not overly complicated. The message should go out that there is money available for people in that category, and they should please come forward to see whether we can assist them and get them in line for the payment if they are entitled to it.

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Have all the people who applied for it got it? Were there any that needed to come back with more information?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. People who-----

Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Everybody who applied for it got it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes. Different issues might have needed to be addressed, but no more than was the case for anybody applying for any payment. If people were short of something, they were encouraged to come back to us with such information. The Department worked with them. To my knowledge, everybody who was entitled to it and looked for it got it. Make the point that some of them got money and they may now be entitled to more. I want them to come forward.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State and his team for coming in. He is simply doing a fantastic job. He is hitting the ground running. He is going like the Kerry footballers. Kerry people had them written off a month ago. Now, they are saying they are going to win the All-Ireland final.

Going back to the compensation package for forestry owners, the Minister of State went through all the figures and we got a bit confused. Some forestry owners have ash dieback forestry on their land. Farmers are forestry owners. What exactly is the compensation for farmers who have been approved?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Just to be clear, at one stage, for clearing the ground, the payment was €1,000 per ha. That has now been doubled to €2,000 per ha. That is for clearing. Then there is funding for replanting it, but there is also a further €5,000 per ha for the farmer himself or herself. Farmers will not have to spend that. That can be for themselves, and it is tax free.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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When do they get the payment for clearing?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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They get the payment in three stages. The big thing is they get it if they apply for it. If they look for it and are entitled to it, they will get it.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That payment is tax free.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is 100% tax free.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The three payments are over how long?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Normally, over a three-year period. It is three years on average.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That is for the new approvals, those who have been approved now to take out the ash dieback timber.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, under the current scheme. Remember, the scheme has now changed and people who came in in the past can qualify for the €5,000 per ha under the new climate action scheme.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Very good. Going back to the people from 2013, they are entitled to claim for €5,000 now as well. Is that correct?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That is 100% correct.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Is that a one-off payment?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, it is a one-off payment.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Is it tax free?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, it is tax free.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That is good. Going back to the private landowners, we are well aware they have a lot of ash trees on their land, especially along roadsides. This ash dieback is not their problem, meaning they are not responsible for it. They are, however, unfortunately left with the problem. Is there any way a special payment can be looked at to be put in place for farmers who have ash dieback to help them and support them? Some of the fees to take these trees down cost big money. It is not the landowners' responsibility but, unfortunately, they are left with the problem going forward. I would not be asking for a compensation payment to take down and cut the whole ditch, just for the trees. Something needs to be done for them going forward.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I cannot argue with the Deputy’s debate because it is well founded. The Minister, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan, explained to me that, in his constituency, he had many situations where there were ash trees that had died on the side of the road. When the affected farmers go about knocking those trees, it is dangerous if it is on the roadside. We come back to farm safety, due diligence and people being careful about what they are doing. If they bring in a professional contractor to remove those trees, large sums of money are involved, and I appreciate that. The Deputy is asking me a factual question and wants a factual answer. At present, is there a scheme in place for roadsides on its own? There is not.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I know that. I am asking a question and we should not be passing the buck. I am asking about the ash dieback trees only, where farmers are affected. That is what I am saying. I know the Minister of State is saying there is not, but could we look at putting something in place to help those farmers? They need support at this stage.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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If we take it to the roadsides that are involved, it might not necessarily be just ash dieback. There could be other trees and other-----

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Sorry now. Leave it. We would specifically say ash dieback only and not another tree. That needs to be made clear.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I put it to the Deputy this way. He makes a good, sound argument on behalf of people in that situation. Like every argument that was ever made in politics, we have to listen to it, so we are listening to the Deputy. However, if he is asking me whether I am committing to an answer, I am not, but I very much respect the way the Deputy is asking the question.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The most important thing is the Minister of State is listening. I hope he is taking it in.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Some of these farmers have serious concerns, without a doubt. Some of the trees along the roadsides might topple onto the roads. The farmers have serious concerns. They are worried about storms and different things. The ash dieback was not their doing but it is a problem now for them.

What is the update as regards forestry around power lines? We all know what happened in the storm a couple months ago. Will there be a law brought in that forestry owners, Coillte or whatever the case may be will be responsible for clearing around power lines going through forestry? We are well aware that caused many problems in the last storm.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Heads of Bill will be coming before the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment in the very near future. We will be discussing the necessary legislation. Every one of us in this room would have always thought, for example, that the ESB had all-empowering legislation backing it in doing what it wanted to when it came to the protection of overhead lines. That actually was not the case. There are a number of issues in this. If we are going to change rules and regulations, as the Deputy knows, we have to protect the very important person who owns the land. We want to protect the viability and security of the power line going through the land but we also cannot go in with our size 9s, take out timber and make land redundant without looking at a compensation scheme for the farmers who would be affected. We will protect the power lines but we also have to make sure that we protect the income and finances of the farmers who will be affected. That work is ongoing. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, has done excellent work, as have officials in this regard. The Deputy will be hearing much more about this in the coming months.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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It is good to know that work is ongoing, and it is good to know the landowners are being compensated as well.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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They are not being forgotten about, and that is an important point.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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We never want to see the likes of what we saw in the last storm again in our lifetime.

The risk associated with large-scale monoculture crops, such as single-species forestry plantations, is plain to see with the ash dieback. It leaves owners in the State horribly exposed to the introduction of diseases and the costs of cleaning up afterwards. We are all well aware of what is happening with the ash dieback. The only question I am asking is about what lessons we have learned in regard to biosecurity. What measures are now in place to ensure that what happened in the past does not happen again? What have we put in place?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We have excellent people working in the Department with regard to safeguarding us from future diseases. I have visited many of these facilities. I have met excellent scientists and eminent people who are working, who carried me into their labs and showed me all types of creatures inside all types of containers. I was frightened at how minute some of them were, thinking of the damage they could do. As a Department, we are very proactive in protecting our present and future crops of trees. The people who supply us with certified trees are excellent.

I have dealt with them for more than 40 years. They do great work. Our imports are very much checked. Surveys of forests are taking place at all times. Coillte is engaged in a very strong programme of monitoring what is going in forests. We have protected zones. We have banned Scottish timber because of the situation there with the beetles. I hope that we have learned lessons from the past.

With regard to the biodiversity of the trees we are planting, as Deputy Cooney knows, there is a 20% obligation for broadleaf trees to be mixed with conifers. We are really on top of this. When it comes to disease prevention and control, we are monitoring, checking and being very prudent about what we are doing to ensure we will not have a situation as we did in the past.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. It is welcome news that this is being done.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the Minister of State and the officials. I will begin with ash dieback, which is something I have spoken about quite a bit in the Seanad. I have met many groups, one of which is the Limerick and Tipperary Woodland Owners. I am very happy that two of its members are in the Gallery to observe what is happening today. Ash dieback is a massive issue. What percentage of landowners have drawn down the grant to deal with ash dieback?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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A total of 4,000 ha out of the 16,000 ha have been claimed. That is the point I was making earlier.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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What is the percentage of landowners?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is 4,000 ha out of the 16,000 ha, and the point I am making is-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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That is one quarter.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, but it is very important use these questions to send out a message. Senator Collins is doing excellent work. With regard to the group she is speaking about, I welcome Mary McCormack. I have met the members of the group and listened to their stories.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Does the Minister of State know-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am very concerned. I hope they see the proactive measures we are now putting in place to try to get us on the proper road.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Why does the Minister of State think the other 75% have not looked for the grant?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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If I cannot answer a question, I will say that I cannot do so. I do not know-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Perfect.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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-----but what I am hoping is that a day like today might turn matters around. People such as Senator Collins asking very important questions such as this might help these people and encourage them to come forward. Keep doing what you are doing, and maybe you might help with the problem as well.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Perfect. My next question is on the grant. Is the grant paid upfront or do people have to have the trees planted a certain number of years before they get the final payment?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The work has to be carried out and inspected, and then the grant is paid.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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People have to pay upfront for the work to be done. They have lost all their trees and all the profit they would have got from them, and then they have to pay to get the forestry cleared and replanted. It is at that point they get their grant.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The clearance grant is paid first.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Before they clear it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

No.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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When they have it cleared.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Yes.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

So, again, they have to pay out to clear it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Then they replant, and they get paid for that. Now, the other €5,000-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

But after everything is done.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Correct.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

They do not get anything upfront.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

No.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

So they pay out after losing their forestry and the potential of their pension. One owner I met lost more than €80,000. He lost his entire forest to ash dieback because he had to wait three years to get his felling licence. I know the Minister of State is saying that the licence process has improved and that licences are being processed quicker, but the man in question had to wait three years and watch as dieback took over his entire plantation.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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In response to this specific point, I am responsible for what happens on my watch. I cannot and will not accept responsibility for anything that happened before my time. If I get something wrong now, Senator Collins can tackle me on it.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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That is fine. I am just making the point.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, and I am making the point that I am not responsible for things that went on before I arrived.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Is the Minister of State responsible for the grant not being paid upfront?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes. If Senator Collins can tell me who gets paid any sum of money before they do any type of work, I ask her to quote the details to me because I do not know who gets money upfront for doing anything.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I suggest that these-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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If I applied for a TAMS grant, I could only get paid when I produced my receipt. You have to produce the goods, do the work and produce the receipts. Nobody gets paid upfront under any scheme.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I agree with the Minister of State on this. However, ash dieback was caused by bad importation. It was not caused by any of these landowners. They did not bring it in. It was a lack of importation controls at the ports. It was either our Government, which the Minister of State was not part of at the time, or another European government. Regardless, it was not the landowners. Why do they not get the money upfront when they did not cause this? It is the same thing with the bark beetle coming in. Dealing with that meant stopping imports from Scotland. We were still taking it. Where are our import controls? Where is the fairness to the landowners, when they did not cause this? This was not an act of God. It was not a storm.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The only answer I can give on this is where we are today. We have our checks in place now. We are on top of safeguarding imports now. Like everything in life, if mistakes were made they were made. We are where we are . We are trying to help the people now. There are good schemes in place now. That is all I can say.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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From what I can see, the Minister of State will not get the other 75% of landowners to replant. They want out because they are not being looked after. They were let down by the Government. They were let down by a lack of import controls. Now, they are being left with forests that are dead and that they cannot do anything with. They have lost their pension pots.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The answer to that is they will leave a lot of money after them if they leave the ground idle. No more than anything, it is-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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From what I can see, it will cost them to replant before they get anything back. Where will they get the money to replant without getting an the grant upfront?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The money is there for them.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Afterwards.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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If they can come along and clear the ground, they will get paid for clearing it. If they then replant it, they will get paid for doing so. There is then €5,000 per hectare available to them tax-free. That is there waiting for them.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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That is provided that everything from the grant covers the felling, the contractors to come in and do it and the replanting. Is it guaranteed that outside of that extra €5,000, the other part of the grant will cover everything?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Can I answer Senator Collins in a very practical way? If a person has a hectare of ground that has ash dieback on it, if it is idle right now and if there is a pot of €10,000 available to use in some shape or fashion to clear it, plant it and then have money for themselves out of it that would be tax-free, it would be awfully negative for that person to decide to continue to leave the land idle. Anything that is idle is good for nobody.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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So the Minister of State is saying the €10,000 per hectare will cover it, guaranteed, with money left over.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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For goodness-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I am only asking because I do not know.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Well, I am sorry, because I do know.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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That is why I am asking the Minister of State the question.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I say that with absolute surety.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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That there will be money left over.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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If a person would not have money left over out of €10,000 per hectare, there would be something radically wrong.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I have never cleared forestry, so I do not know the answer.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I can tell Senator Collins what would actually happen, and I will be as accurate as possible. There would be €5,000 per hectare for themselves, which would be tax-free. Why in the name of God in heaven would they leave the land idle? It would make no sense.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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My assumption that they would leave it idle because they could not afford to clear it first themselves.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I disagree with that.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State needs to go out and ask questions, because I have heard from many people.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I just want to say also that the Department has been very proactive with regard to the beetle, Scotland and stopping the imports. We did everything we should have done at that time, and we were quick-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I will leave it at that because I am nearly out of time. I want to come off the ash dieback and go to forestry in general. I apologise for missing the very start of the meeting because I was in the Seanad speaking. Is the Minister of State still going ahead with the idea of planting on peatland?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I answered that question already. I will answer it again because I appreciate------

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I missed it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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-----that Senator Collins was working in the Seanad. Yes, 100%, but you have to follow-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Okay.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We had a debate here about what peat is. Everybody in the room knows the type of ground I am speaking about.

I never mentioned anything to the effect that we should plant on deep peat. I never said that. I stand over what-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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So the peat the Department will plant on will not lead to any carbon being emitted.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. The Senator knows that the current rules and our guidelines stated that people can plant on ground that has up to 30 cm of peat on top of it.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I do. I am only asking-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes. The Senator knows that but-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Yes, but will the Department plant on these lands? I am only asking because they do emit carbon.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, but-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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They do. It is a proven fact that they emit carbon when they are planted on and again when they are harvested and replanted. We are going towards reduced carbon in this country so we do not have to pay fines from Europe. If these lands produce more carbon than they suck in and we are making carbon in this country, are we going to refund the carbon tax to people?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. I have to be straight about this now. What the Senator said is totally inaccurate. Does she know what we are talking about when we speak about peat?

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Yes.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Does she know what I mean by peaty soils?

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I do.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I just wanted to be clear because if she were clear about that, she would not have asked me the question she asked because she would have already known the answer. The answer is that peaty soils contain a mineral mixed with peat, and we encourage people to plant on that type of ground. We do not allow people to plant on deep peat. We will never allow that. We are not looking for people to do that. What I am saying is that I have allocated €2.7 million for a scheme called PeatFor. In that regard, over the coming years, we will examine the use of peaty-type soils, which there is nothing wrong with planting on - nothing. The Senator recognises and understands that we want to continue-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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So the lands the Minister of State is talking about are the ones that do not emit any carbon.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Senator, we cannot discuss the matter-----

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I am sorry. I did miss the start.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I am moving on to Deputy Lawless.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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I thank the Minister of State for coming in. I congratulate him on his appointment. I have lots of questions, so I might just go one by one if that is okay with the Minister of State and he might be as brief as he can.

First, who was responsible for bringing ash dieback into Ireland? Has there ever been an investigation by the Department? It was found in Leitrim in 2012. I understand it was very close to a Coillte-supported forest. Has there ever been an investigation into the matter? The disease has cost the State millions of euro. It has wiped out nearly 98% of affected trees. It is obviously a major problem. Has the Department ever investigated this issue?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, and there was a report issued to this committee before the Deputy's time.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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Who brought the disease in?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It was widespread all over Europe. Nobody brought it in. It went everywhere.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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The point I am making is that it started in Asia, it was widespread all over Europe in the 1990s and was first found in Ireland in 2012, very close to a Coillte forest. We are bringing in millions of whitethorn trees as part of ACRES and hedgerows, which is obviously a good thing, but I am very concerned about the importation of this. Have we learned anything? My understanding is that the Department has not found a conclusive answer as to what happened. Is this to protect certain State agencies? What have we learned if we are turning around and doing the very same thing as regards whitethorn?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The Deputy does realise that we have excellent companies such as None-So-Hardy that grow plants for hedgerows and grow our plants for our forestries, both for Coillte and for private use. These people are operating to excellent standards. The one thing we would not want to happen at a committee like this is to put any insinuation out there that the people-----

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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No. I am referring to imports. I want to be very clear. I understand that this was long before the Minister of State's time. My point is about imports.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is long before the Deputy's time as well.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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I know that.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The report was given to this committee before he was here. It was a comprehensive report about exactly what happened and how it happened and it was presented to the previous Chairperson of this committee.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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My concern is about imports-----

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Just to be helpful, the report is available and we can circulate it to members if needed.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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If you could, Chairperson. That is a very helpful suggestion, that all members would get that report to see exactly what happened at that time, because the Deputy asks a very important question.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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Is the Minister of State concerned about the level of imports in, for example, whitethorn? Is there a danger of repeating ash dieback in the future? That is my question.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. Because of the checks and balances that are there at present, I am very confident, in the same way I would be about anything. The night before Storm Éowyn, was I expecting it to come along and knock down 26,000 ha of timber across the country? I was not, but you can only-----

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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May I go on to the next question? Who owns the carbon credits that are planted on the land under the current schemes?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will ask Barry Delany to answer that question.

Mr. Barry Delany:

The landowner owns the carbon credits. It is the Department of agriculture that reports back under LULUCF and our other obligations as to what the carbon sequestration opportunities are in there. We report back on that, but the landowner owns them. As Deputy Lawless knows, the European Commission is doing a consultation at the moment to try to introduce an EU-wide scheme as to how landowners, farmers and foresters can avail and maybe monetise this in a certain way.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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So the landowner, the farmer, owns the credits today and will own them into the future under the current scheme.

Mr. Barry Delany:

Yes, that is my understanding in that there is to be an EU-wide scheme to try to monetise this for landowners. There is a consultation on that ongoing, and we can share that with the committee so it can see what is involved in that.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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Since Storm Éowyn, has there been any change to the distances with regard to trees and the ESB corridors? Will the Minister of State consider any changes to that? In the west, in particular, it caused havoc.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, absolutely. Legislation will be changed as required. Again, I compliment the Minister, Darragh O'Brien, and others on the work they have been doing in this regard. A special task force committee has been set up to deal with this matter, and over the coming months the necessary changes will be put in place to allow for us to protect more our corridor while also not forgetting the very important person, the man or woman who owns the land. If there will be a greater setback, they have to be compensated for that and they will have to be taken care of.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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I appreciate that. I urge the Minister of State to try to get that over the line as quickly as possible because we need to be more prepared for the next storm.

I want to raise concerns I have that go back to the Gresham House deal. I understand there is an Irish strategic forestry fund that is supported by Coillte. This country has been asset-stripped for hundreds of years. In fact, during the Famine, resources were taken out of this country by our neighbours. I am very concerned that we are facilitating pension funds and investment funds to compete against neighbouring farmers on land that is primarily in the west. I refer to marginal land. It is a fact that Coillte is involved in this fund. I will provide two examples. In Craggagh, a village between Kiltimagh and Balla, a French company purchased over 200 acres of land and has obtained planning permission to plant primarily Sitka spruce on it. This is a region of Mayo that has already over 50% of forestry. I spoke to several farmers who were competing on that land and who wanted to farm and to raise their families and they were precluded from doing so. What is the Minister of State doing to prevent this large-scale land moving from farmers to investment and pension funds? Is he using the taxation system, for example, to try to promote forestry for farmers while also ensuring we get the right balance and prevent this large-scale movement of land to pension funds, to companies in London, in France and all across Europe, which have no interest in rural communities?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The Deputy is aware that the system of payments to private landowners - to farmers - is completely different from that relating to companies. It is far more lucrative to a farmer than to a company if the former wants to avail of the schemes, so the Deputy cannot say we are encouraging what we will call private investment companies or anything like that.

Yes, if they make a commercial decision to buy a farm or land, and to grow trees on it, that is a monetary decision they take. However, financially we fall on the side of supporting the farmer more than these people and that is a fact. That is very important. The farmers will get paid for 20 years, whereas the company will get paid for 15 years. I will say another very important and sincere thing to the Deputy. If there is land for sale or if an individual, a company or whoever wants to plant, they must look at it this way. If they go through the approval system and get approval to plant, and if it is appealed and goes to FAC, that is it. They can go ahead and plant it. At the end of the day, I want people to plant trees because I want us to have our own timber in the future. I do not want us to be importing everything we want. I want us to be exporting and keeping jobs at home.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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I also agree on forestry. I believe we need to ensure that, where possible, companies and investment funds are not competing against farmers. That is currently the case, and the Minister of State needs to revise the incentives on commercial taxation of the land and the product at the end of it.

He mentioned the forestry appeals committee. A forestry was recently approved in Ballycastle, County Mayo. This is again an area that has plenty of forest. This land is beside a GAA club. The entire community is against this proposal. All of the political representatives in the area are against this. There was an appeal to the forestry appeals committee, FAC. FAC just seems to meet with itself. I have the report here. No member of the community, the local council or the Mayo County Council planning side was invited to be party to the decision or to this appeals process. Will the Minister of State come to Ballycastle to meet the people? Will he meet the GAA club that lodged an objection and received no reply to that? This is an area close to the village and right beside the GAA club. We could be developing beautiful native species with a trail for the local community. That is the way we need to go. Will the Minister of State meet the people of Ballycastle about this?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will give a straight answer to a question. No, but I will tell the Deputy why. The reason I will not meet them is quite simply because it has gone through the process. I do not want to meet them and give them false hope that I can change something. Coillte and the people involved went through the necessary procedures. They went through the appeals. The Deputy said the council was not involved. It most certainly was. It put in a submission at the beginning. At the end of the day, these people have the right to plant that ground. Yes, I take on board the good case made by the Deputy in a genuine way and that of the other local politicians who have come to me. At the end of the day, the horse has bolted. The majority of the work undertaken is actually finished. I have every sympathy for the locals involved, but the Deputy is asking me if I will meet with them. I have no business meeting somebody if I cannot change what is there. What is there now is in black and white. These people have the right to go in to finish their work. It is an entirely independent decision for them to make. If they are going to finish that work, I cannot interfere with that because they are legally entitled to do it. The answer to the question on whether I will meet them is that I will not because I will not mislead them.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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This is my first formal opportunity to congratulate the Minister of State on his role. I wish him well in his endeavours. I see Deputy Danny Healy-Rae is back. I was looking at the Minister of State a minute ago and I saw Danny on the screen talking in the Dáil. The Healy-Raes are ubiquitous.

A lot of what I wanted to cover has been asked, so I will be very brief and give time to other members who want to come in for a second round. The Minister of State noted in his opening statement that we have gone from 1% forest cover in 1900 to almost 12% today. That is the highest it has been in more than 350 years, which shows a lot of work has been done. However, to meet our afforestation targets we need to get to 18% by 2050. Based on that threshold from 1900 until now, it will take between 60 and 80 years to get to that level. How will we get from 12% to 18% to meet our targets based on current levels? We are way short of the 8,000 ha required at the moment.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We have launched a communications plan for 2025 to actively promote the various programmes with more than €1 million invested in our own communications. I will give an example. Last Monday, in Beaufort, County Kerry, I did a promotional video with the farmer involved. I asked him questions and he gave me answers. We are going to put that out there. The Deputy knows the value of social media and all that when it is used in a positive way, and not a negative way with some of the rubbish that on it. I am trying to use simple things like that. We have also funded 42 stakeholders to €1.4 million with promotional projects over the past two years. The 2025 call is now complete, and the new promotional projects allowing for a further €1.4 million have started.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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How long does the Minister of State think it will be before we get back to the 8,000 ha?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will put it this way. There are ill-informed people out there being negative about forestry, including some people who consider themselves leading scientists who talk about peaty soils, and they not knowing one end of a bog from the other in many circumstances. If I could convince those people to see common sense, they would understand it is a lot better for us to grow trees in Ireland rather than import them from Scotland or anywhere else. We should put the money into farmers' pockets here, put the money into our sawmills, give the money to our hauliers and to people like Donncha Twomey and other contractors who have harvesters and forwarders, and to those families steeped in the tradition of working in timber. If I could convince some of those negative people to understand it is better to use our own timber than to import it, I would not be long hitting the target of 8,000 ha, because we were doing it. As I said before about my brother in here, when we were up sodding on two machines we were doing 8,000 ha per year. If we did it before we can do it again.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the Minister of State's passion and his genuineness. He did not answer my question on a timeframe.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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If I had a crystal ball I could give the Deputy the numbers for next weekend's lotto.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I hear him. I will move on. I put a scenario to him, just to strip the whole thing back and keep it as simple possible. Let us say that 20 ha of land comes up for sale in Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny, on the Kilkenny and Carlow border, where I am from. A company, an individual or a farmer decides they are going to buy this package of land and they are going to plant it. Will the Minister of State break down simply and from an individual or company perspective what income they would receive for planting per hectare?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will let Mr. Delany answer that because there is money involved and I know he can explain.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate that.

Mr. Barry Delany:

In the first instance, as part of the new programme that landowner would apply to get his licence and would get a planting grant. That ranges depending on what he plants. If he plants a coniferous mixed height forest, it is approximately €3,500 up to between €9,000 and €10,000 if he goes for agroforestry. If he plants the native broadleaf that goes up to just above €1,200, including fencing.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Is it the same whether it is a company or an individual?

Mr. Barry Delany:

This particular programme tried to incentivise farmers to plant. That is why they get an additional five years of premium. Their premiums range from €800 to €1,200 per hectare per year. If you are a company or non-farmer, you get that for 15 years. If you are a farmer, you get that for 20 years. With the application rate we have at the moment, 80% of applicants going through our process and who have been approved under this programme have been farmers.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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That is obviously tax free.

Mr. Barry Delany:

It is income tax free.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Is there indexation attached to that?

Mr. Barry Delany:

No, not in the programme.

We do our negotiation with the Department of public expenditure, get state aid approval from the Commission and those are the figures for that programme.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Is that something we might consider as a potential option in the context of the upcoming budget? Is indexation for regular income coming through something that might be a runner for new applications? Obviously, €1,000 in 15 years will not be worth as much as €1,000 today because of inflation.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That is a very tricky thing. That would go back to the Department of public expenditure. There are a lot of ins and outs before we could reach an agreement on something like that.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State might indulge me and have a look at it.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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A lot more people than I would have to look at it.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. That is fair.

I will move on. The programme for Government contains a specific measure that says the Government will “work collaboratively with the ESB to support and accelerate the timber and vegetation clearance programme”. Will the Minister of State talk about how that ambition has progressed in the last six months?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I can. For the third time, I am mentioning the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, because he has done excellent work in this regard. The Taoiseach himself is extremely involved and committed to ensuring the protection of our power lines. He is very anxious about setbacks and all of that sort of thing. Yes, it is an ambition in the programme for Government. It is being delivered on. The necessary legislation will be coming in place very shortly. There will be no arguments about that. It will go before us all. It is a matter that is very much in hand.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. The Minister of State said an additional €79.5 million is now available under the climate performance action payment to give the extra €5,000 that he spoke of to ash plantation owners. When was this extra €80 million made available? Is it a one-off or will it be cumulative?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is part of the programme. That is what is there.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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It is €79.5 million to the bottom line. Is it one-off or will it be cumulative, if I am making sense?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. This is not a rainbow with a golden pot at the end of it. There is a finite amount of money available and I have clearly outlined the amount of money that is there. It is a not inconsiderable sum.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State says he has approved an additional 4,500 acres that are now available for planting under the afforestation schemes. Is that the figure for approvals for applications that have come through so far in 2025? I know I am jumping on.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, it is for last year and this year but the licence is valid for five years.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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However, 4,500 is what is in at the moment.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Within those five years.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes. I might add one thing because it just came into my head. On the question as to when we would hit the 8,000 ha per annum, as I said earlier, although I do not know whether the Deputy was here then, there are 4,500 ha approved today for which people have a licence and they are entitled to go ahead and plant. They are the people I am contacting. It is something like 520 people. I am asking them to seriously look at that. The Deputy is talking about hitting our targets. If those 4,500 decided to come in at any time, which they are entitled to do, we would have half a year’s planting of a total target in one shot without issuing any licence because they have already issued.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, perfect. I know I am jumping over and back here -----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, the Deputy is fine.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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This is my very last question. I know the Minister of State is exploring the introduction of a reconstitution scheme. Can he talk to us really briefly on that?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I can. I gave a commitment, which was backed up by the Minister, Deputy Heydon. The Department is very clear on this. People were given the commitment to go ahead and clear the timber, replant it and there will be a scheme in place for them. All I can say is it will happen.

Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The next speaker is Deputy Aird.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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First, I congratulate Deputy Healy-Rae on his appointment as Minister of State in the Department of agriculture. Today is about ash dieback. Many of the questions I had have been answered but I have a good few questions that were not. Am I allowed to ask a question directly to Mr. Dunne? Can I do that?

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The questions are through the Minister of State.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Through the Minister of State, I would like to ask Mr. Dunne this. If his parents planted say, 20, 30 or 40 acres of land with ash and 14 or 15 years later it got ash dieback, how much money would they have earned out of that? Quick question, quick answer.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Oh God.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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If the Minister of State cannot answer it, I will move on to the next question.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, I will answer it. A 15-year premium -----

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Ten even.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, it could be a 15-year premium multiplied by €550.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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At the end of the day, they would have nothing now only a load of pulp. That is what the ash dieback has done to any of the trees that I see around me. I do not know the Minister of State can convince anybody that any money that was mentioned here today would satisfy them. There is no answer whatever for the poor unfortunate people who planted ash in good faith thinking they were doing good for the country, the local countryside, heritage and everything, and what happened? Ash dieback came in and no one ever knew. They knew about fire risk or, say, storm risk but by God, they never knew there was ash dieback. There is no compensation, none, that would compensate for that. That is my first point. I feel sympathy for farmers who were caught up in it.

As bad as that is, now they are aggrieved because they cannot put the land back in. I know people who have done it and the only way to bring land back is this. If I wanted to put land back in Laois, I could buy land in Leitrim or somewhere, replant it there and take out the forestry on my own farm in Laois or whatever. That is the rule of thumb.

Does the Minister of State honestly believe, looking at me, that it is fair a farmer cannot get out of it once he has signed up to get into it? Everybody should be allowed to get out of something. There has to be an opt-out clause no matter what you do. Take the Minister of State's instance. Take his late father, Jackie. He was tied up with Fianna Fáil and if he could not get out of it, it would never have been able to run with Fianna Fáil and neither the Minister of State nor his brother Danny would be here today. I just want to make the point

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry Deputy, we will not personalise things.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Sorry, I am going back now to what I want to talk about

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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We will stick to forestry and we will not personalise.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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This is on forestry. I want the Minister of State, the Minister and the Department of the environment to sit down and look at some little case. The Minister of State has said “No” all day here-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I have not said “No” at all. I said "No" twice.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Take trees on the side of the road. It costs anything up to €2,000 or €3,000 to remove a tree once you have closed down the road, put up the safety signs, given notice to the local authority and it comes out and looks at it and signs it off. It is impossible. I know a man with three trees dead. He has 11 acres of land and it just happens to be on the road. It will cost him a fortune. I am asking the Minister of State not to say “No” and to go back. How many people say to me, “If the Healy-Raes were doing it, they would get it done”? Now I am asking a Healy-Rae. I am putting him on the spot and asking him to do something now that he has the power and money to do.

If someone has ash dieback and has the site cleared, can they put trees back there or does a cleansing project have to be done on that site? Is there anything that says the site would not be fit for purpose?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No, there is not.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I wanted to check that with the Minister of State.

How can Ireland’s forestry licence system be updated to ensure on-time approvals while maintaining environmental standards? This is the one that I was getting back the whole time. It is a fair question.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Can I answer a few of the questions before the Deputy continues? The first thing I will have to say on the record is that in my time since I came to Dáil Éireann, there has never yet been anyone as good as Deputy Aird -----

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Ah, do not start.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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-----and I am fully convinced it will be a long time before there is anybody half as good as him again.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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No, no.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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He is asking tough questions and I want to answer some of them, but I wanted to say that to him because I like to get the opportunity. The Deputy knows exactly what I think of him. I think he is a brilliant person and if more of them were like him, it would be a great country.

To answer some of the questions, first, we have to be factual about the ash dieback. Of course what the Deputy is saying is right. It is horrible if anyone cannot get out of it. It was an awful thing that happened but we cannot be responsible. A Department, a Government, the State cannot be held responsible for something horrible that goes wrong.

What the State is responsible for is how it is handled afterwards. Was it handled well and properly and adequately in 2013? No, it was not. Is it being handled and dealt with now adequately and financially? Within the financial constraints that apply, is the best possible package being given? Absolutely. I will put it up to the Deputy any day of the week that it is. It could not be better than it is now, because we could not give more than is being given. I will go through the figures again, but I do not want to repeat myself and I know the Deputy does not want me to either.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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That is fair enough. Would the Minister of State say it would stand up with suckler farming, dairy farming, sheep farming or anything else? Is that what the Minister of State is telling me?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I would not dare tell the Deputy that, because he knows the price of a bullock as good as I do today.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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He just said, though, that it would stand up. He is saying everything that happened is a good idea.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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No. I never said that.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I am asking the Minister of State now.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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What I said was-----

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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He will not say it will stand up. A Chathaoirligh, I have to ask more-----

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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What I said was that-----

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Do not be talking over one another. One speaker at a time please.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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The Minister of State will not say it here now.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The Deputy is the best man inside here to-----

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I asked him a question. Is the answer "Yes" or "No"?

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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One speaker at a time.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will not-----

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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One speaker at a time. I call the Minister of State.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Is it "Yes" or "No"? Go on.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Lads, steady on.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Is it "Yes" or "No"?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will not let you get up on my back either.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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A Chathaoirligh, the Minister of State is wasting my time. Hold on. I am asking again. How can-----

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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No, I am going to ask the question-----

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Gentlemen, we can-----

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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How can Ireland's forestry licensing system-----

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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Please, gentlemen. We will not be talking over one another or we will end up having to suspend. We will focus.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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-----be updated to ensure on-time approvals while maintaining environmental standards? Could someone answer that question very quickly for me because I have four more?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Is it the time for the licence?

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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No, it is to ensure on-time approvals while maintaining the environmental standards. The Minister of State knows what I am talking about and he knows what people are saying to us.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is within six months but it is necessary to go through the different, appropriate assessments that are there.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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So, it is within six months?.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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That is grand.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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That is broadly the answer to that question.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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My next question was only slightly touched on. What policies will ensure that protected landowners' rights are guaranteed and they are ensured fair compensation in relation to carbon sequestration and biodiversity targets?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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There is a good question for the Minister of State now.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is a good question and I will answer it in the best way I can. When I planted trees many years ago - I was maybe in my early 20s - I had this grand notion in my head. Very few people were talking about carbon credits or anything like it, but I was thinking of them. I was also thinking that in future carbon credits would be of value to a farmer. I would go further than the Deputy is going. I would be saying that a person might not own a forestry themselves but might own land. I am sure hedges would be growing around that land. There are the carbon credits that would be going from farms. People are talking negatively about farms but what about all the positive things about people farming? What about all the positivity in the hedgerows they have and the trees they might have? That is being ignored. It is not going to be ignored in the future because this Government is going to do everything it can. We heard Mr. Delany saying earlier that a monetisation of this issue was being looked at and, hopefully, in the future carbon credits will become a reality and valuable to the landowners. At the end of the day, the Deputy wants money for farmers, but so do I.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Exactly. How will the Minister of State ensure that Government bodies work to promote native species afforestation - which is very important - without undermining the viability of commercial forestry?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We have schemes in place for it.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Right.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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As I said to the Deputy already, there are what I would call small schemes, of up to 1 ha. Farmers might not like trees but they could still plant 1 ha of them-----

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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-----and they would hardly know they were there.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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That is grand. That answers that question.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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They could do them around borders and different things.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I support what was said about peaty soils because there is not a farm in this country that does not have peaty soils somewhere, in the back field or wherever it is. They might have got one cut of hay off it every year or whatever.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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These are the types of land that are suitable.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I have absolutely no problem in promoting trees. I am a tree lover and have trees planted at home all along the ditches. I would not, however, set 5 acres of good land aside for trees. I might as well be honest with the Minister of State. I am a food producer first and there are more and more people to be fed in the world each year. There is that and then solar panels and everything else. I think there are times and places for them all, but not on good land. I am very sorry to say it.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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We will move on.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I am very sorry to say that.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Yes, and I will just briefly answer the Deputy on that point.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I will tell you one thing-----

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Aird. I ask the Minister of State to give a very brief answer.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I want to say one thing to the Deputy. I thank him for his last statement. Does he know why he made that statement about him valuing planting on peaty-type soils?

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Yes, I do.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Will I tell him why he made this statement?

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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Right.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It was because he knows the difference in the ground. He knows mineral ground, topsoil and bog. I will put a big question mark on this, though. Does the Deputy know that leading scientists in this country are talking about bog and they know nothing about bog? Deputy Aird knows what he is talking about though and he is not a scientist at all.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. Before we move to the next speaker, the Minister of State has a right to take a break after two hours.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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We do not want any break. It is only now that we are opening up.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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We will move to the next speaker.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I too welcome the Minister of State to the committee. It is a fierce honour for us as a family to be here. I suppose we could add in the Chair as well, because he is only over the ditch from us in a place called Coolea. We are on the boundary. We have the tent fairly well surrounded here this evening. A lot of journalists were making hay at the time that the fight was about speaking time. They said how ridiculous it would be if I was to be asking questions of the Minister of State. Here we are, and they can go and lump it now. We are here and I will ask him whatever few questions I have, and whatever few I forget, I will ask him some other day, because we do meet.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The Minister of State mentioned the agroforestry scheme for planting trees on land and that you could graze animals under them. Would he ever tell me how close together the trees will be? My knowledge of trees is that much does not grow under them because ash and oak trees, and whatever else, have big roots coming out of them and the grass hardly grows at all where the likes of them are. How close will the trees be?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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It is 400 trees per hectare. That is what a farmer would be obliged to plant. Of course, when the trees develop and grow, the farmer is entitled to thin them further. It is a good scheme if it suits individual farmers because of the fact they can continue to graze their animals. I have visited places where it has been done in the past before there was actually a proper scheme in place for it, and I was very impressed with what I saw. It is like everything in life, though, in that it would suit some farmers and not others. It might be suitable if there were people who might have enough ground for cutting and green ground they might say they wanted a cover of trees on but still graze it. It is suitable in some cases.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am dubious enough about it because I know they impede the growth of grass, even far away out from the ditch. For whatever reason, cattle do not like the type of grass that grows under the trees. They have a dislike for it.

The other very important thing, and we all encountered it during the storm, is roadside trees. This is happening more. People are being killed and everything. What role does the Minister of State have to play in ensuring this is stopped? In all fairness, a young man was killed in County Donegal that time, and people are being killed everywhere with trees falling down on them. I know it and the Minister of State knows it. Deputy Aird made a serious comment. It is a big, onerous problem for a landowner to cut a tree on the roadside with the traffic and the speed and everything. Is the State going to get involved here because it is a serious matter? Does the Minister of State know what is giving me great concern now? If you come up from Mallow to Kildorrery, a fine job was done on the road there. We are all agitating for it. What have they done now only planted oak and ash trees on the side of the road. I mean, it is one thing to be cutting them, but does it make sense to be planting them for the future?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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First, no ash trees are being planted anywhere in Europe now, so whatever type of trees they are, they are not ash. They might be planting oak or something else. The Deputy is 100% right that, considering the lessons we have learned, no trees should be planted on roadsides. The Deputy asked if I have responsibility for trees growing on our roadsides. No, I do not. My responsibility is plantations.

We will call it all of the different schemes for afforestation but I am not responsible for roadside hedges because, as the Deputy knows, that comes under the Department of local government, which is not my Department. I am not saying that to try to get out of it, but I cannot accept responsibility for something I am not responsible for.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am disappointed with that because I understood from the start that the Minister of State was responsible. In relation to the trees under wires and the ESB, does the Minister of State have any say in what the ESB is doing or how far back it is cutting in blanket forest? How far back is the ESB supposed to cut near the wires? This is to prevent power outages like the ones we had for days and weeks on end in places like Cordal and Brosna. It is happening all too often in different places.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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There is now the winter resilience programme, which is gearing up to make sure we do not finish up in situations like those the people of Brosna had to endure, which were horrible and beyond belief. They were trapped in their homes with no power, no heat and no anything. The winter resilience programme will come forward with outcomes as to what the passage should be. That will be my responsibility. As the Deputy and other members will be acutely aware, we want to ensure that the power lines are protected but also that the people who own the land and the trees growing there will be compensated adequately for their present and future loss due to the fact the corridor will be widened.

It comes back to what Deputy Aird asked earlier, that is, if you sign up for something, can you get in or out of it? If we think about it, a person planted forestry and was told the corridor was going to be that wide. If we are now going to tell them the corridor will have to be that much wider, that will be good for protecting the wires but we are devaluing the farmer’s land, so we have to compensate the farmer. The one thing I want to assure the Deputy of is that this will be my responsibility and I will take that responsibility very seriously.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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There was a rule that if someone was planting ground, they would have to plant 80% of green ground versus 20% of waste ground, cutaway bog or other type of ground. Has that rule changed? When we are talking about peaty soil, is that the ground that is being brought back?

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Changes have been made with regard to the land types that can be used. As the Deputy knows from his work experience, much of the land that could be planted before cannot be planted now because of different regulations and guidelines. What people can do at all times is plant land that has 30 cm of peat on top. There is this idea of encouraging people to stay away from certain types of soil and go on to what the Deputy would call the good green ground. The €2.7 million that I am spending on this intensive programme, PeatFor, is aimed at studying what type of land types we can plant. I am trying to get us away from the idea that people cannot go near this ground because it has peaty-type soil. It is a big concern for the Deputy and I take that on board. That is why we are spending €2.7 million studying it. I want to beat the scientists with science.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I agree with the Minister of State. He said that some crowd said we had a romantic notion about planting trees on blanket bog. I went through bogs with tractors and machines, and I can think of more romantic places to be. In one minute, you could be swallowed, and you would be trying to get up from underneath and to get out of the machine before it was covered up. There is a big difference. Those people do not really know what they are talking about, although they have a case for not planting that type of bog. We know it as black ground. There is a big difference. They need to be educated in that regard. That ground could be planted.

I have the same concerns as Deputy Aird about planting green ground, good ground or arable ground, and I have the same concerns about putting solar panels on it. There must be some regulation. At the end of the day, what agriculture is about, for me and many others, is food security. We cannot compromise that. I think that getting rid of 600 or 700 cows in some places just to put in solar panels is criminal, to be honest. The Minister of State said that it is a landowner’s right. However, they would never have left farming, whether dairying or otherwise, if they were being paid properly for their produce.

Eileen Lynch (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State and his team for being with us today and for his patience during what has been a very informative but lengthy session. Many of the issues have been raised but I want to touch on one issue that has already been addressed. With regard to the afforestation plan, we are not at delivery and we delivered just one fifth of the plan for 8,000 ha of forestry last year. Today, the Climate Change Advisory Council has come out and said the scheme is completely unsuccessful and, because of the nature of some of the areas of forestry that have older timber or older wood, it is actually proving counter-productive. The Climate Change Advisory Council and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council issued a report some months ago outlining their concerns that we are not going to meet our climate targets, and they referred to the fines we are going to incur as a result. In that report, they focused on three areas where we can improve in order to meet our climate change targets, namely, our use of EVs, our access to the energy grid and the way in which we use forestry. I ask the Minister of State to comment on delivery, but more so in regard to the concerns expressed by the Climate Change Advisory Council today.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am delighted the Senator has asked the question. Last night, I read the press release that the Climate Change Advisory Council issued. I had it in my hand and I thought that it was a disgrace because it is wrong, it is inaccurate and it is misleading. I have told others this already but I am going to say it again. What they actually did in that statement was they repeated - I do not want to use the word “lie” so I will use the word “inaccuracies”. They said that I said things that I never said, but they think that by repeating what somebody else was wrong in saying in the first instance, it was going to be all right for them to say it. They were wrong.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I remind the Minister of State that they are not here to defend themselves.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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