Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad the Deputy and I are in agreement on the importance of forestry. Ireland is well below the European average in terms of forest cover and we are responding to that in several ways. We have a very active State-owned company, Coillte, that is looking to expand and invest in its forestry interests and to that end is taking a new approach to its work. We are one of the very few countries in Europe that is actively promoting afforestation of agricultural land, and that is where almost all the afforestation has come from in recent years. Through all the financial pressures and reductions in expenditure across different areas, from which I have tried my best to insulate agriculture, there has been no cut at all in the forestry funds. We have been spending €119 million on afforestation right through the past five years in the context of very difficult budgetary choices. To clarify, that is all Exchequer money; none of it comes from the EU. We will continue to prioritise forestry and if we can afford to spend more, we will do so.

Our target is to get 6,000 or 7,000 ha planted annually. It is a realistic target which has been very much championed by the Minister of State, Deputy Hayes. It makes sense from an afforestation point of view, from an environmental perspective and in terms of landowner income, because forestry suits certain types of agricultural land. In addition, and what is becoming increasingly relevant, is that afforestation has a major part to play in achieving Ireland's climate change targets in the context of an overall European target of a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030. Ireland was paddling a lone canoe on this issue for a long time but we now have agreement in the European Council that afforestation of agricultural land will count as a positive in the calculation of the overall emissions challenge of agriculture and land use. That is a major achievement which we must hold on to in the context of the setting of those targets. If we do not do that, we will have a very unbalanced picture of the contribution of agricultural land to the emissions challenge.

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