Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A good forestry policy, as I am sure the Minister of State will appreciate, should do three things. Obviously it should play a really important role in terms of protecting the environment and carbon emissions. It should also be of benefit to a local community. The forest is something that people should want to live close by to, as opposed to the current position whereby entire communities are rising up against some of the forestry policies. It should bring a benefit to the economy, particularly to the local economy. We have managed to develop a forestry policy in this State that does none of those three things, for reasons I have outlined. There are examples and we are beginning to see spreads of areas where this can be done well. Our forestry policy does not necessarily mean telling farmers they have to plant a certain percentage of their land with trees. They would find their worst land and would plant as many trees as they could on it. We should be encouraging them to have trees planted throughout the farm. The example of the Inishowen uplands project is of a standard that we should try to emulate across the State.

See this speech in context