Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister of State on bringing this Bill before the House. It is urgently needed on two fundamental fronts. First, we need to promote afforestation, biodiversity, habitats and rewilding and without this urgent legislation, that cannot happen. The second front, which has probably gotten the most airing here today and rightly so, is the need to save the timber industry which is coming to a crashing halt.

On rewilding and the planting of trees, the programme for Government, contrary to what has been said previously, is very strong on balanced afforestation, the planting of a much higher percentage of broadleaf species, rewilding and biodiversity. For example, the programme is strong on supporting community groups to plant native woodland species in their areas. These are projects that are ready to go across the country but they cannot proceed because of licensing issues. It is also strong on the planting of trees in urban areas, in our cities and towns. Community groups and tidy towns committees are coming together all over the country with these fantastic projects and this legislation is needed to support such projects. We hear many calls in this Chamber for a strong agri-environment scheme or a REPS II and part of that will be the planting of native woodland species that promotes biodiversity, habitats and rewilding. That will come to a standstill unless we get this legislation through the House. That is the importance of the Bill in terms of the balanced approach to afforestation being taken by this Government.

The second fundamental point is that the timber industry needs this legislative intervention. As has been stated by almost every contributor, 12,000 jobs are dependent on it. That is the national picture but if one takes it back to a micro level one can look at GP Wood in Enniskeane, right on the border of my constituency of Cork South-West which employs about 500 people. In an area encompassing Enniskeane, Ballineen, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Bandon and Coppeen, 500 hundred jobs is absolutely enormous.

It is vital but it is struggling, and it is coming to a halt at the moment. It is being forced to import timber, which has other impacts in terms of carbon footprint, and it is being forced to reduce the hours of employees because of the issue of supply. This legislation addresses that and it cannot come soon enough.

I want to raise an issue which has not been touched on enough in the Chamber. There is a huge mental health aspect that I feel this legislation addresses. There are landowners and forestry owners throughout the country who have mature woodland that is ready to be felled. They are waiting for the income from that, but due to the situation with forestry licensing, they have to wait two or three years, which has a massive impact on their mental health. This needs to be addressed.

We need extra resources in the forestry appeals committee and we need the extra ecologists who are being provided, but we also need this legislation.

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