Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As an aside regarding forestry, the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, is working on a new scheme to allow farmers to plant small plantations of trees. It is very small, but still significant if everyone does it. We would like to see farmers using a small part of their land for small plantations, ideally with native broadleaf trees. She is introducing that and allowing them to avoid the existing licensing system for doing that.

I believe MARA will be up and running much sooner than in two years' time. Hopefully, it will be set up in interim form in its new headquarters in Wexford this year and will be operational for real next year. I agree that we need to invest in Rosslare Europort when it comes to wind energy. We will have many offshore wind installations off the east coast as well as off the west coast, but initially off the east coast. We want to ensure that the turbines come from Irish ports and not from English or Welsh ports, not that I have anything against English or Welsh ports, but we would like to use our own ports. Investment in Rosslare will be crucial in that regard.

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