Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 15, line 30, after “grants,” to insert “subject to Dáil approval and”.

This is the most important amendment we have proposed and I hope the Minister will adopt it. We have heard about the broad outline of the scheme that is being brought forward which exempts afforestation of broadleaf trees up to 1 ha. We support that, as the Minister knows. We support that principle. This amendment asks the Minister to bring any scheme arising from this legislation before the Dáil for approval. The reason we are doing that is that forestry policy, as has been already discussed here, has failed utterly in recent years. There has been a systemic failure to deliver on targets that have been set and to ensure that forestry policy does what it should do, which is to deliver for the environment, communities and the economy. As I have mentioned on many occasions in this House, we have managed to come up with a forestry policy that does none of those things. We want that addressed and I hope this scheme will be a small part of addressing it. It will undoubtedly be a small part but it can be a part of all of that. We need to make sure it is.

Quite frankly, this amendment is a matter of confidence. We want to build confidence in this sector because at the moment that confidence is at rock bottom.

There is a pattern that emerges with this type of scheme. The legislation provides for schemes to happen. I can nearly write the playbook. On a Wednesday evening at some point in the future, I will check my Twitter feed or I will see a screenshot of the front page of the Irish Farmers' Journal and it will tell me that the Minister is about to launch a new scheme. That will happen prior to any Member of this House being aware of it. We will get the headline details in the Irish Farmers' Journalor another publication.

Within minutes or hours, we will start getting phone calls from people asking if they will qualify for it, what it will mean or how they will operate and we will have no idea. We will have heard nothing at all about it. There will have been a PR exercise and we will have to wait until the next opportunity for the Oireachtas committee to meet or for parliamentary questions to be answered if it happens between recesses or whatever the case may be. It happens all too often. I am asking in this instance that we democratise this system.

I imagine the Minister has unanimity tonight with regard to this legislation. He will get full support regarding the idea and principle of scheme. We are asking that he bring the scheme back to this House in order that we can scrutinise it, in the first instance, to make sure there are no unforeseen issues. It happens all the time that schemes are introduced by officials with the very best will in the world, even in collaboration with the Ministers, and then there are difficulties with them. We want to make sure that when the scheme is introduced, there is Dáil scrutiny and that the Dáil approves of it. Then the Minister can have his PR launch and take the credit for delivering what we hope will be an excellent scheme.

This is absolutely fair and critical. It has been sorely missing across too many areas of agriculture where there has not been proper democratic oversight of the detail of schemes that can impact people's livelihoods. When they are got wrong, they can put people out of their livelihoods or cost them substantial amounts of money, whether that be in penalties or whatever the case may be. I believe it is a reasonable amendment. I urge the Minister to accept this amendment in order that we can say this scheme will be a product of the Oireachtas recognising the failures in forestry and collectively coming together, under the Minister's leadership, to address this issue in a progressive and pragmatic way.

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