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

I apologise to the House. I have been unavoidably absent for the past 24 hours or so. I was waiting for a close contact to get a Covid test result. Thankfully, it was negative and we are back in action. I wish to record my thanks to Deputy Martin Kenny, who took over the lead for Sinn Féin during that time. I thank all Members who have contributed on this important debate. I hope that it will be a small part of the much larger debate on forestry policy that we need to have.

I have put on the record in the Chamber and elsewhere my belief that it would be overly generous to suggest that this State had a forestry strategy. We do not. A good forestry strategy should be good for the environment and, importantly, local communities. Local communities should want to live close to forests. If forestry is done well, then it should be seen as an amenity and a benefit. It should also be good for the local economy. I am using the term "local economy" purposely. Local people should be employed in these forests and the economic benefit should be visible in any area where there is forestry. The ongoing offsetting of forestry to multinational corporations has been detrimental to the ambition of ensuring positives for communities, the environment and the domestic economy. We have a great deal of work to do.

I would appreciate it if the Minister or Minister of State indicated whether it is the Government's intention to support any of the amendments before the House. That would be telling. The Minister and Minister of State have acknowledged the Opposition's facilitation of this legislation. Both of them are new in their jobs and have told us that this is an emergency, and we have accepted that there is a backlog in felling licences that needs to be addressed urgently. As previous speakers indicated, too many jobs are on the line for us not to take this seriously. However, the Minister and Minister of State have a responsibility to ask their Department why this situation was allowed to become an emergency. The Bill should never have been emergency legislation. We knew this time last year that a backlog was building. Even if Deputies had not known, all they would have needed to do was pick up the Irish Farmers' Journal or look at AgriLand on our phones. Farming organisations and those at the coalface of the forestry sector were telling us about the backlog, yet nothing was apparently done until the summer months when we were told that emergency legislation was being introduced and the Opposition was urged to waive pre-legislative scrutiny, which we did. During the welcome discussions on what the Bill would entail, one of the requests that my party made when facilitating the waiving of pre-legislative scrutiny was that the Minister and the Department would give due consideration to the amendments. Different sides of the Opposition have tabled amendments that are constructive and helpful and would make the Bill much better. I hope to stand corrected, but the inference I have picked up is that the Government does not plan to accept any of them. That would send a bad signal and would be taken into consideration the next time, if ever, we were asked to waive pre-legislative scrutiny.

There is a problem with forestry and a lot of it stems from the Department not taking the issues seriously. We do not have a forestry policy in respect of climate action. We have a timber production strategy, which is an important element but only part of it. We have a situation where, in County Leitrim in particular but increasingly in other counties as well, communities are up in arms because they feel decisions are being made into which they have absolutely no input. They deserve to have such input and this legislation must ensure they do. However, the ability for people to have an input should not be used as an excuse or rationale for stalling the entire forestry mechanism of the country.

We intend to support Deputy Fitzmaurice's amendment. I ask that the Minister or Minister of State give an indication as to whether they plan to accept any of the amendments that have been put forward. If we know which ones are being taken on board, we can facilitate their passage through the House this evening.

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