Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to discuss this very important topic. I know only too well what has gone on with forestry in the past two years. It is the total height of blackguarding. I have raised this issue several times on the Order of Business and at every chance I got over the past couple of years. I could see what is happening coming. We are very near to a situation where the sawmills will close, the hauliers will stop working, the harvesters of the forests will have nothing to do and the planters will have no ground to plant on. What is going on is the height of blackguarding. People are appealing from as far away as 200 miles, with no connection at all to forestry or to the felling licence they are appealing against.

What happened in the first place is that farmers and Coillte planted marginal lands and got grants to do so from the Government of the day, which was proper and right. It was marginal land that was fit for nothing else. This had the effect of creating income for the State and for the landowners and the lands were replanted. However, the whole thing has been at a standstill for the past two years and it is now coming to a head. If action is not taken, 1,200 jobs will be lost and €2 billion could be taken out of the economy. When I am in Kilgarvan, all the lorries are travelling westwards, bringing products that are costing people money. The only lorries I see going eastwards are the forestry lorries, which are creating an income for people, and the fish lorries, which we talked about last night. There are also farmers taking cattle from the Kenmare mart through the town and eastwards. If we are not careful, we will lose the forestry industry because farmers will have to decide, before planting land again, whether they will be able to fell it. They have to put up with all the nuisances such as deer, badgers and foxes that are coming out of this forestry but they cannot cut it down and realise the income to which they are rightly entitled. There are places like Clondrohid, Enniskeane, Palfab Limited, Grainger's in Clonmel and MEDITE in Clonmel, all of which could close down. All the lorries we see on the roads taking the timber to the sawmills will be no more.

I am appealing to the Minister not to rush the Bill through and to take our amendments into account. We must be sure the legislation is adequate to deal with the blackguarding that is going on. I get very hurt and annoyed when I hear Dublin Deputies interfering and meddling in something they know nothing at all about. I appeal to the Minister to take our amendments on board.

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