Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I hope I will get the Ministers' attention for this last few minutes, as the author of this motion. A great deal of work has gone into it. It is a very serious issue. I thank my colleagues in the United Left Alliance and other Independent colleagues who signed the motion and spoke so well and passionately on it. I also thank Members on all sides of the House who have spoken on it and taken the issue seriously.

I wish to give the greatest amount of credit to the groups outside this Parliament who have brought this issue to the top of the agenda. They include environmental groups, walking groups and people involved in the timber industry. I had a group of scouts from Delgany in Greystones in the House today. The group was not here specifically for this debate, but was in the Visitors Gallery for some of it. Both the scouts and their leaders said they were utterly opposed to the sale of Coillte harvesting rights, because they are the forests in which they walk and hike. I particularly pay tribute to the Woodland League, which protested with us outside the Dáil today. Tragically, its spokesperson, Andrew St. Leger, was barred from coming in to attend this debate because he spoke at a protest outside the Dáil at 5 p.m. It was a shocking decision.

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