Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has raised a lot of issues. The broad thrust of why this new scheme was put forward and taken to Brussels was to encourage more people to get involved in forestry. Traditionally, farmers have been used to growing grass for feeding cattle, milk production or whatever the case may be, or indeed growing grain. There is real money in forestry and there is a real need for it from an environmental perspective and in respect of the issues the Deputy outlined. That is why the Government supported this. Job creation is another issue and there is no doubt that forestry is totally under the radar of public perception. There are more trucks drawing timber to sawmills than there are drawing cattle to factories in Ireland.

On my way to Dublin today, I called in to Mountrath in County Laois, where I saw at first hand 100 people employed under one company at three different sites, sawing and cutting timber and exporting it. Last week, I was at the Glennon Brothers plant in Fermoy. Glennons of Longford is a major company and one of the most successful in Ireland. It is exporting timber to the English market and there is huge demand for it. I could not put a specific figure on the number of jobs from forestry but if we can increase take-up on the new scheme, there will no doubt be a pro rata increase in jobs. There is planting, drainage, fencing, maintenance of the forestry and thinning. There is also a huge amount of work when the wood goes into the sawmills before it is exported as boards that can be put up in the building of a house or the construction of a bathroom or whatever. There is great potential there and we have a climate that is conducive to growing timber faster than in any other European country. That is what we are working towards.

The employment issue is particularly relevant in rural Ireland. I mentioned some places but there are many others. For example, in the village of Hollyford there was a creamery 25 or 30 years ago with two people working in it. Last week, I visited the sawmills employing 45 people in that small village. That is supporting rural Ireland. The farmer aspect is trying to target a civil servant or person working in Dublin who has inherited land down the country and is leasing it on the 11-month system. Forestry is ideal for those people, who are considered non-farmers as they have other jobs and might share the land with a brother and two sisters. It is also targeting the co-operative industry that has land out there, in order to bring in more people and to increase the hectarage of land we are producing on. I can give the Deputy more figures on that and I thank him for his honesty and sincerity.

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