Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Historically, we do not have a great record in the development of forestry. I say that in the context of what other European countries have done. I know other speakers alluded to this yesterday and earlier this evening. We are coming from a country with such huge tracts of virgin soil that there is much potential to develop forestry. We have not managed to do it so far and we certainly have not managed to do it at the speed that some of us would like. I am one of the people who admire the work Coillte has done. In particular, I am very impressed by the publication from IMPACT entitled Save Our Forests. It is a fine piece of work and anyone who has an interest in this should read it. It is a pretty good argument in terms of developing forestry.

Some of us get ourselves knotted up in a great ideological defence that any State asset should not be questioned. If there is a possibility of any sort of job, it matters very little to most people on the dole whether it is in a semi-state company, a communist commune or a private entity. I am glad the Minister stated earlier in his contribution that no decision had been made on this. Nobody on any side of the House can make that claim because it is just a bit of rhetoric. There are two or three fundamentals. People would like Coillte to be more commercially successful because this would be a good thing. Being commercially successful means a better dividend for the taxpayer, saving existing jobs and creating additional jobs. That is what most ordinary people would wish for in this debate.

I do not believe in blowing ourselves apart over State assets. I am not suggesting a blanket sale of State assets but if a private operator in some circumstances can save and expand jobs, that should be looked at. My preference is for Coillte to be able to do that. There is certainly plenty of potential for it to do so and I would like to see it go down that road.

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