Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am glad that our timing is good in advance of the event to be held in Stradbally tomorrow. I wish the Minister of State the best of luck in that regard. What I hear is recognition of the fact that continuous cover forestry has a real role to play but in marginal conservative research on native forestry; however, not necessarily on the scale in respect of which I believe there is potential. This is a moment of real change. We should surely have learned in the past 30 or 40 years that much of the forestry we had planted - it is nothing against the people involved - was on the wrong land and in the wrong location. Minimum services were provided. Effectively, we were foresting to receive grants rather than thinking long-term, which is what one must do in forestry. At a time when the level of afforestation must jump, we need to change. It is important that the Government give a clear sense that the mainstay approach will be towards continuous cover forestry and that the entire support system will work to that end. When we look at such continuous cover forests in Germany or Switzerland - I have seen examples in Ireland where Sitka spruce forests have been planted in this way - they end up with an incredibly vibrant and valuable forest where the value of the output is ten times what we are getting from lower grade fast growth wood. Will the Minister of State make the big strategic leap tomorrow and state we will go with this scale rather than just a research project?

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