Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It should be shared out fairly. I was going to raise the issue of the Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021, which the Taoiseach mentioned, but for the week that is in it, I will raise an issue regarding forestry, which I assume this Cabinet committee also deals with because the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the various other Departments that deal with forestry are also under its remit. As I understand it, the division that deals with fisheries and ports also deals with forestry. I will ask the Taoiseach about that.

I put it to the Taoiseach that, this week, the week of the Conference of the Parties, COP26, the Government is speaking out of both sides of its mouth on the issue of forestry. I was shocked to see the forestry dashboard figures. To be honest, I was not shocked because the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has made this point. While we are talking about protecting the forest estate, in reality, five to ten times more trees are being cut down than are being planted every year. Five to ten times more felling licences are being issued than afforestation licences. This is happening year after year so there is net deforestation while we hear high-flown speeches in Glasgow about protecting the forest estate and expanding it to deal with climate change. That is hypocrisy. If we are seeing net deforestation, that is a serious problem.

I must raise something that was brought to my attention in this regard this week. I refer to Coillte selling off forests. I am holding an advertisement for 37 acres of forest Coillte is selling off in Enniskerry, on the Wicklow-Dublin border. Does the Government know about this? Does it think it is okay? There is a right of way through this forest, which is a public amenity forest. There are bronze age cooking pits in it. It is of great geological significance and Coillte is flogging it off. We fought, and I organised demonstrations, back in 2013 to stop the plan to sell off harvesting rights for the entire Coillte forest estate. We got commitments at the time that the forests would not be privatised. I have put in parliamentary questions on this and I contacted Coillte this week, although I have not got a response. That is absolutely shocking. Will the Taoiseach look into that? Does Coillte have to ask the Government for permission to flog off public forest? It certainly should have to. It is being advertised for €250,000, by the way. That is 36 acres of forest for €250,000. That stinks, apart from anything else. We have to do a hell of a lot better than we are doing on forestry. We are getting net deforestation and the State forestry company, which is entrusted with being the steward of the public forest estate, is flogging off public forestry. That is utterly unacceptable.

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