Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Green Party for bringing forward this motion on forestry, which People Before Profit will be supporting. The forests are important because they produce the air that we breathe. They clean the air. They clean the water. They hold the soil together. They prevent flooding. They produce products that can be useful for society for creating employment. They assist in this country in advancing tourism and bringing people to visit. At every level, they benefit our society and our environment. Of course, crucially, they help maintain the biodiversity that is necessary for us to exist. To put it simply, we would not be able to exist without the forests. That truth, which we may not have thought about or which we ignored, has now come home to roost when one looks at the climate emergency that the planet is facing and when one considers that 15% to 20% of all emissions are as a result of deforestation globally. When we cut down the trees, when we deforest, when we do not understand the critical importance of forestry to our existence on this planet, we endanger our future. There are very few things more important than getting forestry right and recognising its importance.

For us in People Before Profit, it is a critical issue. Something I am most proud of in our record in the years in this Dáil is the role we played in the campaign to stop the selling off of the harvesting rights of Coillte that was being demanded by the troika and agreed by the Government until thousands of people took to marching and protesting throughout the country and forced the Government to do a U-turn on that extraordinarily foolish idea that we would sell off the forests to investors to pay off the debts of bankers. I am also proud that probably - I have not studied everybody's pre-budget submissions - every budget submission we have made since we got in here has allocated hundreds of millions more in funds than the Government has allocated for an afforestation programme, and we have repeatedly questioned the Government on its failure to advance an afforestation programme in this country.

The Government amendment is a bit rich. When I put forward a motion on forestry in 2013, the percentage forest cover was exactly as it is now. Nothing has changed. We have not advanced. In fact, the targets for afforestation have been halved. The Council for Forest Research and Development, COFORD, way back then stated we needed to be planting at least 15,000 ha a year to get up to 18% forest cover, which is still well below the European average of 30% to 35%, but we have failed spectacularly to meet those targets. We have reduced those targets.

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