Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State said that adding duplication or additions would further delay the process and make it more expensive. I am most interested in her notion that planning departments in local authorities throughout the country would be swamped and unable to cope. In my parish in County Leitrim, only two houses have been built in the past ten years. The planning units will have absolutely no problem coping with the workload. The last time the Green Party was in government, it worked hand in glove with Fianna Fáil to support developers to cover the country in houses. We had nothing but ghost housing estates all over the place. The planning authorities were able to cope then and they will have no problem dealing with the forestry issue. Indeed, they want to do it. I spoke to somebody in Leitrim County Council in recent weeks about what happens when there is a consultation on a licensing application. The person told me the applications are always replied to and sent in, but the council staff know it makes no difference. They know they will not be listened to. He said the only reason they send the applications in at all is that if somebody checked, there would be blue murder if the council had not made any response.

They know it is not listened to. They are totally discounted and have no say in the situation whatsoever.

The Minister of State spoke about the licensing process. Everybody knows it does not work. The forestry policy does not work. There should be a planning policy first which would then consult with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine rather than the other way round. That is the problem. I suggest that planning is put first. The local authority not only looks at afforestation but also at every other development in the region, along with the environmental, societal, tourism and other impacts.

The Minister of State would be against ribbon development, as I would be against it in most cases. She would not like to see one house after another along roads stretching out through rural communities. Nobody has any problem, however, with ribbon development of forestry with townland after townland covered in trees and no people left. That is the reality for many people living in many parts of County Leitrim.

Recently the Minister of State's party colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Noonan, came to Drumkeeran in north Leitrim to visit the site of a landslide near the Dawn of Hope Bridge. That landslide was caused by afforestation. A landslip occurred on the top of a mountain that was covered with blanket bog. It had been planted with forestry when it should not have been touched for a whole range of environmental reasons. The local authority staff on site told us that if they had any say in it, they would not have allowed that forestry to be planted there. However, they had no say in it. It is still the same today.

The Minister of State can try to hoodwink me and everyone to the effect that, somehow or other, it is going to be different this time. We all know it is going to be no different because the same people will be in charge. All they care about is the timber production industry and feeding that industry. They do not care about the people or the damage they do to the rural environment. They care about nothing else but timber production.

The Minister of State indicated that local authorities have got some sense of being able to have a duplicate of a process and that there would be two processes happening. Somehow or other, it is felt that if the local authorities were doing it, they would not have the expertise. They have the expertise, however, for every other kind of development that arises. If somebody wants to put up wind turbines or install a farm of solar panels, the local authorities have the expertise. A local authority has to dig deep, find the expertise and provide it. In general, they do it very well, yet the Minister is not prepared to trust them with afforestation. That just baffles people.

The reasons the Minister of State put forward for opposing this are basically nonsense. Everyone knows that the process that the Minister of State is putting forward as the one that works is the process that has failed. It has failed rural communities, biodiversity and everything to do with the environment. The only people who have profited are the small handful who make all the money. The Minister of State wants to continue with that process.

As my colleague said earlier, it is time to do something bold. It is time to stand up to the people in the Department and say that we want to do it differently. There has been much controversy about the mother and baby homes and another Green Party Minister, for whom I have a great deal of respect, is being led by the nose on that matter as well. The Minister of State should not be like that. She must do something bold and different. She must stand up and have a little bit of gumption in respect of this matter. Ordinary people will appreciate it if she makes a stand. Even if she thinks she will be unpopular among the handful of advisers around her for doing so, it will pay dividends for her. If she bends over, is pliable and goes with the flow, as everyone who gets into government wants to do, she will not be there very long.

That is a travesty because I understand that green politics are international. Many young people have a huge grá for the environmental process and what the green movement is about throughout the world. However, when the Greens get into government in places like Ireland, they cock it up. The Greens should not do proceed to Committee Stage where we can debate it and work it out. We can then make progress because we want to work with the Minister of State and not against her.

Please do not set us up for another failure. The Minister of State should not say to the people who live in rural County Leitrim, who have been failed for so long, that she is going to preside over further failure. Do not do that; do something bold. She should support this Bill to go to Committee Stage. We will work with her and will try to do the right thing because I want to see afforestation that is positive for my local community. I want to see jobs in my local community but what we have is not that. The Minister of State said that it is historical. I can tell her that it is right now. I can bring her to places where farms and lands have been planted with thousands of acres of forestry. There is nothing else there for people. That is wrong and it should not happen. There needs to be a better process.

The Minister of State should do the right thing, in her own interests and in those of her party. She should show people that she is prepared to do something different. She should show that she will not be led by the forestry industry and its people in the Department who are driving this. She should stand up for the ordinary people who are the victims in all of this. She has that opportunity and I hope she takes it on this occasion.

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