Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will certainly support an amendment if it helps in some way to give more clarity to the forestry sector, especially to those who are supplying and working in it. We have gone through a horrendous year and a half with situations involving people that reach all the way back to the landowner. It is very simple. If people cannot fell their forest, they will not sow it. As previous speakers have said, that is why the targets are so important. I am on the agriculture committee and I do not know how many hours we have spent bringing Department officials before us to try to answer simple questions as to why it cannot meet its targets. It always looked as if, about a week before the meetings with us, the targets would fly up and as soon as the meetings were over they would go down to rock bottom again. It looked like there was an objector at the time who was able to dictate to the nation how and where forests could and could not be felled. It was scandalous to think that a whole nation could have been held to ransom by someone who was just ruthlessly objecting and who did not have a honest reason to do so.

It is a major issue that we are not meeting our targets, which we have discussed over and over again at committee level. It does not look like it will rectify itself this year. It did not in 2021. GP Wood in west Cork is one of the biggest timber manufacturers in Ireland. I have spoken and met with its owners on several occasions because they had a very serious concern for their business in that they would be importing timber instead of being able to have their own timber in this country. There is plenty of it this year, if common sense was applied.

This amendment will in some way ease the pressure on those who work in forestry farming so they are at least clearly able to sow and fell forests. That is the way and the clear channel by which people get into forestry farming. We need to encourage more and more people to do so. Unfortunately, the situation for the past year and a half has been so bad that we discourage people from doing that, which is shocking. We as an agricultural committee and as a nation need to turn around this whole very dour and bad situation into a positive one where we see clear planting of forestry in the time ahead. That means we would at least be able to meet our targets.

See this speech in context