Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh míle maith agat a Cheann Comhairle agus go raibh míle maith agat as ucht an ábhar seo a phiocadh. As I stand here raising this matter the fire service, the Army, the Air Corps, Coillte staff and local people are out on the ground trying to bring a raging forest fire under control. Already, more than 1,500 ha of forestry and 2,000 ha of bogland have been destroyed. I understand from the local media that is an area five times the size of the Phoenix Park. That is happening as I stand here. The forest fire is raging from the Oughterard side of Galway over to Inverin on the other side.

I raise this issue first to pay tribute to the staff on the ground, but also to ask the Minister of State what are his and his Department's plans in respect of this matter. I understand that the loss of productive timber and its replacement alone will be at a multi-million euro cost, not to mention the loss of wildlife, the damage to the environment, the serious threat to people's houses and livelihoods and so on. This fire is in the Cloosh Valley which is the biggest forest in Ireland as I understand it, covering more than 4,000 ha. That means that, already, 25% of the forest has been destroyed. These figures are difficult even for me to comprehend, but are even more difficult for the people on the ground where the fire is raging as we speak. I was on the Aran Islands on Monday with the Joint Committee on the Irish Language, the Gaeltacht and the Islands, and we could see the smoke from there. I have a number of questions to which I will return after the Minister of State's response, but the first is how could this have happened? What fire assessment was carried out? What risk assessment was done? The biggest wind farm in Ireland is right in the middle of the forest. How was it allowed to go in there? When it was allowed to go in there, what assessments were carried out?

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