Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

Both Labour and Fine Gael gave pre-election commitments not to sell off Coillte. Prior to entering Government, the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, said:

Do we really want to end up in a situation where this for-profit company could turn around and do whatever it feels like with a natural resource that rightly belongs to the Irish people, including many of our forests, rivers and lakes?

Deputy Andrew Doyle said: "That amount of land with that potential has to be kept in State ownership." The selling of Coillte could have serious effects on areas of large forestry. The Coillte N2 district covers Sligo, Leitrim and parts of Cavan and Roscommon. Coillte owns 32,500 hectares in this district, 74% of which is planted. There has been much talk of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of late and I have raised the issue on several occasions in this House. Will this Government readily supply fracking companies with Coillte land and allow them to destroy not only the forests, but also the health and well-being of those living nearby?

If we consider gas a State asset, and it is, how can one Minister make a decision to sell off that asset, irrespective of the serious and well-founded concerns regarding the safety, sustainability and advisability of so doing? Surely any decision of such major importance should be agreed by Cabinet and voted on by the Oireachtas as a whole.

This is privatisation by any other name. How long will it be before we see the privatisation of our health services which are currently being slimmed down so as to appear attractive to national and international financiers? I nearly did a double take when I heard Deputy Micheál Martin speak earlier today of the Government's failure to restore cancer services to Sligo Regional Hospital. Can this be the same person who sat at the Cabinet table and collaborated with the decision to remove those services in the first place? I was deeply concerned that, in his response, the Taoiseach referred to Sligo Regional Hospital as being among a group of "smaller local hospitals".

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