Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is an element in this Chamber every day, and seemingly more so of a Thursday, of returning to the scene of the crime. We get an opportunity to probably rerun one of the many single transferable speeches we have at this stage. This is not the first time any of us has dealt with forestry in the House. We all see the issue as what is described as low-hanging fruit, in the sense that it is one of the major gains. We could be on to a winner as regards doing what is necessary from the point of view of ensuring sustainable farming and, beyond that, meeting those targets to which the Government has agreed. If we are not doing these relatively easy things which need to be done, we will have serious difficulties in the future and it will be very hard to deal with the targets we have missed. We are talking about the afforestation target of 8,000 ha per year. In the years we have been trying to do this, we have reached between 25% and 30% of that target. We have all seen the figures.

We have all heard from farmers anecdotal stories about the slow application process. This year, a large number of people, even those who had previously had no difficulty, told me they were not entirely sure what the end result would be when they had grown their crop. They are afraid to plant trees because they are not sure they will be able to fell them. They will have a similar problem at the end of the application process. That means we have a real deficit of trust in the system. That is one issue we must rectify.

Many of us have been saying for a long time that the Government needs to deal with the farming sector by producing solutions that work for all of us and for the betterment of society. As we have all seen, the arguments can sometimes become heated, particularly with regard to climate change. Those of us who have attended local Irish Farmers Association, IFA, meetings will have seen that a significant number of farmers accept that we are in very different world with changing circumstances, and that we all need to play our part. That is a fact that we must accept. When people are willing to meet us halfway along the road, we have to do the other part.

The ongoing issue with the application process does not cut it. That is accepting that work has been done on offshore wind, where we are behind. We know there are major issues in the planning process in general. We have to address this problem.

It has already been stated that nobody is particularly enamoured of the relationship between Coillte and private equity funds. These funds are interested in getting bang for their buck and not necessarily the societal payback we are seeking. We are dealing with three particular sets of circumstances, namely, wins for the environment, society and farmers, respectively. If we could get this work done along with work on anaerobic digestion, it would be a good achievement.

Timber costs are through the roof at this point. We must facilitate the domestic timber industry in whatever way we can. We are failing at this point. Everyone has spoken about the Mackinnon report, which laid out best practice. It is about time we implemented the report and delivered what needs to be delivered. As I said, this is low-hanging fruit. It will be unforgivable if we miss this opportunity and particularly unforgivable for a Government that involves the Green Party.

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