Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Fitzmaurice for giving me time. I appreciate what the Minister and Minister of State are trying to do here and I welcome the amendments, but this falls far short of what we really need. There is a major crisis within the forestry sector. The chair and the other members of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine will agree with me on this point. This is the one issue that has continually been discussed in that committee since the start of this Dáil. It is the one issue which has continued to be debated and discussed since then. It is a sector that is always in a crisis mode and that will continue.

What we require here is stand-alone legislation to fix the outstanding issues which exist. We saw the support for the Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 that came from right around the House. The Minister will get the very same support if stand-alone legislation is brought in to fix the problems that now exist. Having spoken to the nursery people, the planters, the sawmill operators and everybody involved, it is evident everyone recognises the problems that exist and they feel the Department is not getting to grips with the real issues and sorting them out.

Turning to situations where people are trying to build houses, and I know this debate is concerned with the planting aspect, the felling of forestry is also a great problem. There are millions of trees to be felled now while we have this ongoing issue with licensing. Many people who have submitted applications to plant forestry, and many of those applications are still going through the process and being assessed, will never do this because they see the crisis in the sector. It might be useful if the Minister looked at the people involved in this regard and spoke to them about their applications. Senator Paul Daly spoke about this in the Upper House today, and I agree 100% with what he said. If those applicants were telephoned today and asked whether they wanted to go ahead with their planting applications, yes or no, I assure the Minister it would then be possible to deal with and get through the applications of those who are serious and want to plant forestry.

We could all speak here on forestry for the next three or four hours and about the issues in this sector. They can be solved easily, however. I plead with the Minister, the Minister of State, their officials and the Department to look at stand-alone legislation to deal with the real crisis existing in this sector now. I assure the Minister and the Minister of State that support would be forthcoming from all around the House if such legislation were introduced.

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