Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Since the Coillte and Gresham House arrangement first emerged, it became clear that more was known by the Department than was being let on at the time. While the Project Woodland working group was convening, the arrangements with Gresham House were being put in place. The Minister of State, Senator Hackett, was aware of this as far back as March 2021. She and the Minister appeared before the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine on several occasions and totally disrespected us by not informing us or the working group about this arrangement.

Effectively, the stakeholder group that was being consulted on the way forward for the industry was being kept in the dark about an arrangement that will fundamentally affect its members' livelihoods. One such stakeholder told me, "This makes a farce of Project Woodland." I was also told by a forester that he developed suspicions about such an arrangement when landowners began telling him about being contacted by fund representatives who were interested in buying them out.

Because of the way the forestry service has been mismanaged, the Department has no chance of achieving its afforestation targets through conventional means. This is the way the Government wants to get it done, by sidelining our foresters, contracting out the work to a private investment fund and handing over public money when all it has in mind is profiteering, not what is in our interest.

The Irish Farmers Association, IFA, expressed the concern that a large proportion of new forestry programme funding will be redirected from farmers in rural communities and instead paid out to investors, and it is absolutely right. The Government is using Coillte to try to keep this arrangement to redirect public funds at arm's length from the Department. However, it expects the benefit from it nonetheless while farmers take the hit. It is fooling no-one, however. One forester told me of his fears that he will be unable to compete for land given the deep pockets of funds. He referred me to the UK Forest Market Report 2022, which outlined the surge in land prices experienced in Scotland where, incidentally, funds are quite active. The Government is selling out foresters and rural communities.

Also concerning to me is a reply I received to a parliamentary question in which the Minister of State told me that while Coillte is providing management and land acquisition services to the company concerned, it may have procured these services other than from Coillte. Who else is the door being opened for here? Can the Minister of State please elaborate on that? How many more entities like Gresham House, which have no obligation to Ireland or its biodiversity targets, are waiting in the wings?

Instead of masking the Government's failings by selling out this sector, I demand that the Minister of State directs Coillte to halt this proposal. She should instead fulfill her brief by immediately publishing the new forestry strategy, clearing the remaining forestry licensing backlog while continuing to process new licences and implementing the Mackinnon and other reports that are gathering dust on the Department's shelves.

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