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

I will explain why it is a vulture fund. I will set the context for this. Our forests were destroyed by colonial and imperial plunder. It was brought down to about 1% in a country that used to have 80% forest of native woodland. One of the objectives and missions of the revolutionaries who fought for the independence of this State, right back to Parnell and the revolutionaries who fought in 1916, was to recover and regenerate our native forests and woodlands. Therefore, it is absolutely appalling that anybody in Coillte, in government or in its Departments could think it is a good idea to have wealth-asset management companies come in here and buy up potentially 100,000 ha. which is what Coillte says that it is going to contribute. Yes, the first deal is 12,000 ha. but was the whistle not blown about this? We shall see what is going to happen. So it is potentially 100,000 ha., 0.25 million acres, and God knows where it could go from there, which will be bought up by profit-hungry investment funds. Are these people vulture funds?

Helpfully Coillte sent us a document containing frequently asked questions on the Gresham House deal. It states:

Where do the fund’s profits go?

The fund is designed to generate profits from the business of forestry and timber production. These profits will be retained within the fund and from time to time be distributed to the investors in a similar way as a company distributes dividends to its shareholders.

That is a corporate takeover for profit. It is very simple. Let us get a bit more specific. Olly Hughes is the forestry managing director of Gresham House. In an article he wrote recently, he explained Gresham House's interest in buying up forests. He did not mention the word "biodiversity". He did not mention the idea of supporting farmers. He did not mention protecting wildlife, public amenities or any of the things that ordinary people and Coillte should regard as the real value of our forests and our natural heritage. Instead, he mentioned carbon trading credits, which are set to multiply in value in coming years. The casino that we saw wreck this economy with vulture funds, asset funds and so on in terms of housing will now switch to the trading and speculation in carbon credits by profit-hungry international investors. That is what they are up to.

Who will own these carbon credits? Perhaps the Minister of State might inform us. Whom will they benefit? This is speculation on environmental destruction because carbon credits are bought by countries that do not take real action to mitigate climate change but buy themselves out of their requirement to deal with the destruction of our environment by buying up credits. Gresham House, facilitated by public money and public premiums by the State company, will facilitate speculation on carbon credits. That is what is going on. Of course, that means it wants the fastest-growing cheapest type of forestry that gains value for its investment and gains profit for it, regardless of the consequences for environment, communities, small farmers, biodiversity or climate change mitigation. It does not have the remotest interest in those things.

It will exacerbate an already failed forestry model that has been dominated by the Sitka spruce industrial monocultural model which is a blight on our landscape and has done such damage to many communities and so on. By the way, it is an accident waiting to happen. As with ash dieback what happens if anything goes wrong with these massive industrial single-species plantations? All of it can be wiped out as happened with ash. Has the Minister of State heard of the bark beetle, for example, which is running riot through spruce plantations throughout Europe? It could potentially wipe out the entire forest estate. The pine weevil is already doing damage to Sitka spruce plantations to which they are extremely vulnerable. This kind of forestry model is an accident waiting to happen. It is bad for soil, water, wildlife, farmers, biodiversity and climate change mitigation. A report for the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine a few years ago suggested that our forestry model might even be a net carbon emitter. This will exacerbate this to the benefit of vulture funds.

This fact has been confirmed by, of all people, the European Commission - not my favourite people. Andrew St. Ledger and I, who were involved in organising today's protest and the Save Our Forests – Save Our Lands campaign, received a leaked document, which presumably the Government has had in its possession for some time. It contains a damning critique by the European Commission of our forestry model and of the failure of the Government to carry out a proper strategic environmental assessment on its forest programme. Is that the real reason we have not got state aid approval? We provided this damning indictment to the Irish Examineryesterday and has been published in that newspaper if the Minister of State has not read it. It slates the environmental impact assessment provided for the Government of the €1.3 billion forestry programme.

It highlights failure to comply with the Aarhus Convention, failure to fully deal with the negative impacts of what it calls the dominant Sitka spruce model, failure to address the problems of planting in the wrong places on peatlands and sensitive environments, and doing planting that is damaging wildlife, aquatic life and so on. Is that the real reason? Why was that not in the public domain? When was all this signed off without the Government supposedly being aware of it? The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is a State agency. Are we really suggesting that the Ministers and the rest of it were not aware of this going on?

I am not sure if this stuff has come into the public domain. Records reveal that a company called Gresham House Forestry General Partners (Ireland) Limited was established in April 2022 with Pat Cox, an ex-Fine Gael Deputy and MEP, as a non-executive director. The company also joined the Irish Association of Investment Managers, which is led by the former Fine Gael Minister of State, Michael D'Arcy, who was a Minister of State in the Department of Finance which, I remind the House, is the main shareholder in Coillte.

When we are talking about the failed model pursued by Coillte, who set up Coillte? It was Bertie Ahern and Ray Burke. Why does it have a mandate that is all about profit and not about biodiversity, protecting and enhancing the forest estate in the interest of the people, the public, the common good and so on? As we know, Bertie Ahern subsequently headed up the International Forestry Fund of IFS Asset Managers, based in Dún Laoghaire. We had to go marching in 2013. It was not Pat Rabbitte who stopped the plan then of the troika and the Government, signed in a memorandum of understanding, to sell of the entire harvesting rights of Coillte. One of the groups looking possibly purchasing those harvesting rights was a fund headed up at the time by Bertie Ahern. Thousands of people marched in the save our forests demonstration and the Government was forced into a humiliating, but good retreat.

The numbers will swell unless the Government gets out of this deal and end such deals. Has a strategic environmental assessment even been done of this deal to see the damage it could do to the environment? The Government needs to get out of this deal and reform Coillte.

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