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

The Minister of State's reply is extremely worrying. He repeats again and again about the market, prices, financial return and so on. I am not saying those things are unimportant but there was not a single mention of the role of forestry in dealing with climate change and to act as a sink for carbon. The Government has signed the Paris Agreement. It has made commitments and rhetorical references to the important, substantial role forestry will play in all of this, yet what we hear is that, for market reasons, trees are being cut down too young. That is what I am hearing. The Minister of State is reinforcing that market conditions are determining this. Best forestry practice is that trees grow for 35 to 50 years. If we do not, as the Council for Forest Research and Development, COFORD, suggested, have a minimum of 10,000 additional hectares of forestry a year, and currently we are at 6,000 hectares, our forest estate will be a net emitter of carbon dioxide rather than a sink. If trees are being cut down early, as they are, for market reasons, our forest estate will not be playing the role it urgently needs to play in carbon sequestration.

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