Seán Connick (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

My Department actively encourages forest owners to thin their crops. Thinning improves the quality of final crop trees and can provide a source of intermediate income for forest owners.

In recent years my Department, in conjunction with COFORD, has funded a number of projects to encourage thinning in the private forestry sector and to develop markets for the small diameter timber produced by thinning, particularly to the renewable energy sector where there is an increasing demand for energy wood in the form of small diameter logs from thinning operations. This demand has stimulated increased management and timber output from private forests.

My Department has also provided start-up funding to a number of forest owner-producer groups to encourage private forest owners to work collectively in the management of their forests and marketing of forest products, with a particular emphasis on thinning operations. In addition, the forest road scheme operated by my Department provides grant aid for the construction of forest roads which will facilitate the extraction of timber from thinnings in private forests in a cost-effective manner. The scheme is now open and applications are currently being processed.

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