Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the points raised and, having visited the site, I know the work that was done. There were over 100 people there, including Coillte staff, the Army, Air Corps and some private helicopters who were experts in their actions. I visited a point where there was a new infrastructural road built by the wind company. As it was a crown fire, it jumped that road but those 62 km of new road infrastructure allowed emergency services to get in.

I looked at the map before I visited the site. The suspicion is the fire originated at a point some distance to the south east of the plantation.

The fire would have travelled pretty fast through what is bogland and a special area of conservation, SAC. The problem for contingency planning is that one would need to look at the perimeter, notwithstanding all the precautions that have to be taken on site and see how that vegetation can be controlled and managed. The National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, can give derogations for controlled burning, which is an essential part of vegetation management so that material can be edible. There was a noticeable lack of livestock and sheep on that ground.

I would not pretend to be the expert but it needs to consider how it will control that buffer zone and the vegetation so that it never gets to the point of being so tall, dry and highly calorific because that will burn. I have seen people in the Wicklow Gap, maybe hillwalkers or others, who through recklessness throw away a cigarette butt in the dry time when the wind is in the right direction. As the Deputy said, everything coincided perfectly, the change in wind direction and the drop in temperature assisted greatly in reducing the threat last Wednesday.

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