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

Coillte was helpful and informative. My questions are more directed at the Government’s policy and, as it is the main shareholder, to where it is driving Coillte. If Coillte cannot contribute to afforestation and increasing our forest cover, then it seems to me that it is being driven in the direction of providing industrialised wind turbines, for example. In 2009, when the loan facility was extended from €30 million to €400 million, it was said in this House that some of that might be used to move into the area of providing nursing homes. Coillte is moving into controversial areas such as providing industrialised wind turbines which is arguably nothing to do with what it really should be doing. It is being pushed into a more commercialised, for-profit, privatised direction by government policy.

We have no control over it even though we are owners of 100% of it. It is in a type of limbo where there is no transparency over its investment decisions, strategic direction or whether it is applying itself to its core activities, namely, growing trees and managing the forest estate.

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