Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I also think there should be a question and answer session. I want to raise what I believe is a scandal. That is the planned deal between Coillte and the UK investment fund, Gresham House. It is essentially the State facilitating and financing a corporate grab by a for-profit investment fund of tens of thousands of hectares of land and forestry in this country. I asked the Chief Whip at the Business Committee last Thursday for an urgent debate in the Dáil about this plan. Small farmers, environmentalists and anybody who cares about the forestry, heritage and land of this country are horrified by this deal, which is a repeat of the disgraceful plan to try to privatise the harvesting rights of Coillte back in 2013, which we protested against and gladly overturned. This deal has to be stopped. At a minimum, I ask for a commitment to an urgent debate in the Dáil about this outrageous plan to privatise Irish forestry.

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