Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will share two and a half minutes of my time with Deputy Kehoe. I will be fairly brief. The largest part of this Bill relates to the cull of the mink. We need not to forget those people because they seem to be kicked to the side in the new amendments that have come in. Fair compensation must be given to them. They have worked with the Department in every way. Some of them will say very clearly the Department has not been as helpful in working with them as it should have been. Proper compensation must be given to those people, who have facilitated the Department in every way.

A few amendments regarding forestry have been thrown in at the end of this Bill about mink in what we in rural Ireland would call a half-arsed manner. I cannot get my head around that but this place would baffle you every day.

Let us be frank about this and call a spade a spade. The Minister is bringing in a document, or a way forward, to enable the ticking of a box to say Ireland will reach its target. A press release can then be issued to say the climate action target of 7,000 ha or 8,000 ha has been achieved. To be frank about this, though, we will not have done it as we should have done it. There is one simple reason for that. Every Deputy here who is a member of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine will say straight up that we are blue in the face telling the Ministers about the dysfunctionality of the Department in this regard. It has never reached a target since 2016. The Ministers, however, persist with the same piano players and therefore they will continue to get the same tune.

The bottom line is we will all support this Bill. I do not think anybody has a problem with it. We have commented on how farmers should be allowed to plant a hectare. Let us take the example, though, of the region where Deputy Carthy is from. Why is it the case when an invisible line is crossed into Northern Ireland that farmers can sow three hectares without planning and licences, while farmers in the area where Deputy Carthy is from can do nothing without going through reams of paper and waiting three years for the process to be completed?

If the Minister or the Minister of State is coming into our committee in the afternoon, I urge them to have answers to these questions. We are basically being asked to sign a blank cheque at the moment. When we asked earlier if there was an establishment grant, the answer given was that would be considered down the road when this thing is put together. It was the same when we asked if there would be so much money given each year. The answer again was that would be decided down the road, when the terms and conditions of this scheme are put together and when these people and those other people have been talked to.

Having talked to representatives of the forest industry, it is evident they have lost confidence. That is the first aspect. In addition, is it the Green dream that this is all going to be native woodland? I see pine is included in this proposal. I will not say in this House what I think of pine. I have, however, seen pine trees growing around the country, and those trees should never have been sown because it is the worst timber anyone has ever put in. Why has the wording here not referred to “forestry”? That would allow people to sow whatever native species they wished. People would then be able to sow pine, even though I would not be a great fan of it, or even a bit of spruce in a corner.

I will give an example of what I have seen down the country. Fields are generally square, and when farmers are mowing fields they go around in semicircles, leaving what we call shelter belts. Those could be composed of different species. I often saw spruce trees forming part of those belts and they never did a bit of harm. I also often saw all-native timber stands and that never did a bit of harm. It was a great idea. Today, however, the Department has stated that anything less than 0.1 ha will not come up in the carbon counting. It will, though, come up in the context of the Department's dashboard, when we are all told every week we are great now and we have reached 5,000 ha.

The reality of afforestation in this country now is we are cutting 6 ha for every 1 ha we are planting. The Government has not addressed that issue. The reality is that approximately 45 licences were dealt with last month and 36 in the month before. It is a disgrace what has happened to people who want to plant forestry in this country. What is being done by the Government now is basically saying we are great because we have reached the 8,000 ha target for planting. The question that must asked though is how we achieved it. It was done by using every Tom, Dick and Harry of an excuse to try to tick the box and to cover Ireland's position down the road. I have said this time and again.

What the Minister’s Department has done in the line of felling has worked, and that is good. However, it is like a Mafia situation in that we have to keep bringing in people to keep going after the Department all the time to get results for the people out there who are busting their arses trying to get work in and living from forestry or to keep sawmills going. I am referring not just to the situation now. It is criminal what has gone on in that Department over the past six years. It will be the farmers of Ireland who will be kicked under this new climate agreement. That will happen in five, ten and 15 years' time because of what we have done now.

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