Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin is absolutely opposed to the Government's proposal to sell off the harvesting rights to our national forests. That the troika prompted the sale of such an important national asset to proceed is, to say the least, simply shocking. It is shocking from a number of aspects, economic, environmental and recreational. More importantly, in the context of employment, the sale of Coillte makes absolutely no sense.

In his report on the proposed sale of Coillte's harvesting rights, Peter Bacon looks in some detail at all of these areas. He concludes: "The economic rationale for the proposed sale of harvesting rights no longer stands up and cannot be justified." Coillte is wholly owned by the Irish State and its job is to manage the nation's forests, which make up 11% of the landmass of Ireland. As a wholly owned State company, Coillte accounts for more than 80% of all timber that is sold on the Irish market each year. As Bacon noted: "Coillte output will remain vital to timber processing operations in Ireland as it will comprise almost the only source of supply of large diameter mature timber for many years to come."

What is even more worrying is that the proposed sale is not based on the performance of Coillte or on the market value for timber.

In other words, no efficiency audit of Coillte was undertaken by the Government to ascertain whether the proposal to sell one of the nation's most valuable assets made any sense. The sale of Coillte would make no sense because it would ultimately have an adverse impact on direct employment in this sector and in tourism industry. The Coillte annual report estimates that visits to forest sites deliver in excess of €270 million to the tourism sector each year. The sale of Coillte makes no economic or environmental sense and should be abandoned by the Government immediately.

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