Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

That is worthy of a long debate and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine would be delighted to have it. The percentage of land under forest in Switzerland is of a different magnitude to the percentage under forest in Ireland, if the Deputy had not noticed. We need more forestry and this Government has given clear attention to it in the programme for Government. Managing forests means harvesting the crop in the public interest. There is a difference in the decision. We will consider the Coillte proposal because other proposals have been made for the use of the forest. The Minister is examining these and we will make the best strategic decision for the Irish economy.

The questions of Deputy Wallace are like saying that we should ignore the current economic crisis. We must map our way out of it with every tool available. It has long been said that austerity alone is not a strategy, a criticism with which I agree. It must be part of the strategy because the only people who will give us money have attached conditions to the money. That is why we must achieve the deficit reduction target. There is no gainsaying that and anyone who understands economics understands that. We must also have a growth strategy and utilising some of the assets to invest in the productive economy is part of that strategy. There are other elements, such as the development of the NewERA entity and the strategic investment fund, to which we have committed €250 million from the National Pensions Reserve Fund, NPRF. We will leverage that to €1 billion for investment in job creation and we also want to use the residual part of the NPRF. I had a discussion on the use of other pension funds. We want to release that because of the €70 billion in pension funds, only 2% is used in the productive economy. There will be a range of initiatives to leverage further investment for a growth strategy to mirror the strategy of balancing books.

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