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

The bioeconomy strategy pays lip service to forestry and its importance to the bioeconomy, biodiversity, a circular economy, etc. However, the actuality of Government policy suggests that all of this is just lip service and nothing more. A report by Mr. Jim Mackinnon, commissioned by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, has come out just this month. Frankly, it is damning of Government forestry policy. It points out that there is no coherence of targets. The Government has three different targets. We do not have enough foresters or inspectors. There is no serious campaign to win people over to the value and virtues of forestry. There are problems with the excessive emphasis on the industrial model of forestry. There are huge backlogs in the processing of applications because we do not have enough people working in the sector. Most damning of all, this year there is a target, which the Taoiseach has announced on several occasions, of planting 8,000 ha of forestry. The actual rate of tree-planting this year is the lowest in 30 years, at 3,250 ha. There is a consistent pattern of the Government failing to meet its own targets by a long chalk when it comes to forestry. From the points of view of biodiversity, climate change and the bioeconomy, can we get more than lip service when it comes to an afforestation programme?

See this speech in context