Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The afforestation programme comes with an obligation to replant.

4 o’clock

One of the issues in regard to that scheme has been to make sure we maximise the value of the State's investment in afforestation in the first place, by optimising both the monetary and environmental value from the crop that has been established.

The Deputy is right in that it is necessary to do research and trialling. There are sites that will be supported as part of ongoing research. There are disadvantages from the perspective of the whole economic prospect of the industry if one is going to develop a whole forest sector at national level. Some 12,000 jobs are supported by the industry. We have some significant investment from the processors. The size of the product that comes out of a continuous cover forest is not attractive to them. It is not something they can use significantly. It has a place, but I do not think it is it going to replace the existing afforestation programme. People would not have seen any role for agroforestry a few years ago. Native woodlands schemes were on somebody's wish list, but now they have come to be. We have to look at it as part of the overall afforestation landscape, but not as an either-or.

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