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

I want to lodge with the Taoiseach directly my very real concerns about the direction of the forestry strategy in the State.

There is a target in the programme for Government of planting 8,000 ha of new forestry each year. Our climate action plan assumes that we have been planting 8,000 ha of new forestry, but we are only managing about a quarter of that on an annual basis. It is getting worse since the Government took office. We hear lots of rhetoric. We are working on the basis of a forestry programme that dates back to 2014 and that should have been renewed in 2020. It was not renewed at that point and is only being updated this year. The absence of that programme means that between now and March, we are unlikely to see a single tree planted. Saplings will be destroyed, and there is a real potential for job losses. Will the Taoiseach intervene to ensure that we have a forestry strategy that works and delivers?

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