Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Any money the State spends on any initiative in the climate change area will be to deliver on the climate agenda and to achieve value for money. To put it another way, could the money available be spent on some other initiative in climate to deliver a greater dividend for us? That is the framework within which we are looking at it. We are considering capital costs, running costs, the availability of feedstock and what it delivers to reduce our carbon footprint. They are all in the mix. I await with interest the climate change report and I appreciate that a great deal of work has gone into it from all parties and colleagues. It will obviously form a very important part of the consideration. In particular, the Deputy referred to the possibility of a land-use policy in that context. I am less in favour of prescription and more in favour of encouragement. We have seen what is happening in Leitrim in the context of a land-use policy at the moment. People there are saying they do not want any more trees. A land-use policy might mean in some quarters telling people that they must engage in a specified activity on a specified soil type and on a different activity on a different soil type. I am not in favour of that. It is not fair to ask any particular community, as I have said several times, that on a particular land type, they must take all the trees while others get on with a different type of activity. It is not fair.

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