Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Like a number of previous speakers, the constituency I represent has quite a lot of forestry. I believe that Clare is one of the most afforested counties given the proportion of the county and the size of forestry there. I have invited the Minister to my home town of Scarriff to see Sliabh Aughty, to which I have not yet received a reply. I look forward to the courtesy of a reply. One can travel from Scarriff to Gort, which is about 25 miles give or take, and from Gort over to Loughrea which is another 25 miles, and back to Scarriff, and one sees mainly forestry. I was in Cappaghabaun recently, which is a townland at the foothills of Sliabh Aughty, about which is a huge plantation. A farmer said to me one could go from there to Gort and not see a single person. There is lots of forestry but that forestry is dead. There is no life in that forestry. Yes it is a cash product and yes that product does need to be harvested at some point, but we also need to ensure that never again will we have tracts of land planted like that for very little benefit to anybody who lives nearby.

There was once a chipboard factory in Scarriff. It ceased production in December 2010 and pulled out completely shortly thereafter. Notwithstanding having this huge amount of forestry on our doorstep, almost no benefit accrues to the local community. Coillte owns a large amount of it, some is privately owned, but in any event very little benefit accrues to the local community. It is not surprising in those circumstances that people would object to afforestation of that type and on that scale. I completely sympathise with that. I believe that farmers need to be able to plant their land and the farmers who have planted their land in good faith need to be able to fell those trees.

That said, we need to ensure that plantations, and especially what is replanted, is done responsibly and in an environmental and ecological manner and that landowners are incentivised to do so. We are all aware that if one fells an acre, ten acres or a 1,000 acres it has to be replanted, but there is very little incentive to replant with anything better than monoculture, which is dead. There is nothing living inside those plantations. There is very little incentive to replant with anything different or better. There is very little supervision with what Coillte in particular is doing. As the water courses of east Clare are being degraded farmers are regularly consulting with each other and are being consulted by Clare County Council about it.

I welcome what the Minister is doing but we do need to strike a balance.

This is about balance. We must make sure that people can make decisions and that decisions are made quickly but also that environmental concerns are taken into account adequately.

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