Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No one needs to be convinced of the merits of trees. Experts tell us that, if we plant 18,000 ha per year between now and 2050, we will be carbon neutral without taking any other action. That is not an improbability. Back in 1994, we were planting 24,000 ha per year. Of that, 18,000 ha were in the private sector. Farmers and other members of the public were more than happy and enthusiastic to plant trees, and they did so for all the right reasons.

Subsequently, we descended into a licensing quagmire. I appreciate that the Minister of State has taken major strides in resolving the licensing issue but the fact remains that confidence in the sector has been shattered. The new €1.3 billion forestry fund is welcome but that news was tinged with disappointment as the state aid rules have not been signed off on and it could take at least another eight months before we get the go-ahead from Europe. In some respects, this restricts new planting, but the real hammer blow was the news that Coillte was teaming up with Gresham House. This issue is a lightning rod for disappointment across rural Ireland. We are told that it is a done deal, but I do not accept that. It is unacceptable that another semi-State company can recklessly and intentionally embark upon a programme of radicalised commercialism to the detriment of national interests. Coillte already enjoys a dominant position in the Irish market and is responsible for as much as 70% of the logs produced here. It decides who can buy them and at what price. The Government and the Department earnestly reached out to Coillte and sought to encourage it to consider further forestry at scale across the country. However, Coillte took this as licence to ramp up its commercialisation plans with a covert plan to bring it to what is almost a position of monopoly in this country. This unholy alliance has the potential to give Coillte absolute control of the bulk of production of a rare natural resource.

Coillte needed a corporate ally to reach this position. It looked across the sea to Scotland and saw Gresham House, which now has as much as 25% of Scotland’s forestry market. Coillte, in its wisdom, decided that Gresham House was a perfect partner for it in getting to where it wanted to be. Gresham House does not plant virgin forestry. It only sources semi-mature forestry with the express aim of maximising profit to the detriment of all else. As a consequence, forestry prices in Scotland have careered northwards. An Irish producer active in the Scottish market recently sought to buy a large tract of forestry and was willing to go as high as €150 per cubic metre, double what the producer had paid previously for forestry land in Scotland, in the hope of outbidding Gresham House. However, one cannot outbid Gresham House. The investment house ultimately paid three times over the odds for the land. Its pockets are deep and it does not bother with idealism. Its motive is pure and simple – unadulterated profit.

Coillte is setting itself up for a near-dominant share of timber production in this country, which will have a significant knock-on effect on construction, house building specifically and house prices for many people seeking to get on the property ladder. Coillte knows that timber demand will treble over the next three years and that there is an infinite amount of money to be made from timber in the coming years.

This deal is dependent on €25 million from the ISIF. I do not accept the argument that the ISIF cannot be told to pull this funding. It is not an acceptable investment for the ISIF, it is not ethical and it will have detrimental consequences for rural Ireland at every level. The Government has it within its power to tell the ISIF to pull the funding. If it does so, the deal will fall apart.

Coillte went into this deal with its eyes wide open. It believed it could ride out the subsequent public outcry and backlash. Our most senior politicians, including party leaders, are giving Coillte some cover by saying that this is a done deal, but people can welch on any deal. That has been done countless times down the years. Admittedly, to do so would come at some price, but Coillte went into the deal having researched it and found out the details for itself. It now needs to take stock of the room. It needs to listen to the people and realise that it has lost the room and the Irish people and that the Irish people have seen through the deal. This deal is wrong. It might have made eminent sense in a corporate boardroom in London or Edinburgh, but it should not have made sense for the directors of a semi-State company tasked with managing one of our finest natural resources. Coillte needs Ministers to back away from this deal. It needs to swallow its pride, and whatever losses come with that, and accept that this was a major miscalculation on its part.

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