Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Let me be crystal clear. This new forestry programme will absolutely deliver on the right tree in the right place for the right reasons under the right management. Under the new programme, the incentives for native broadleaf forests, agroforestry and continuous cover forestry will be significantly increased, and there will also be support for a new forest type, emergent woodland. This is supporting for the first time naturally regenerated woodlands. A further example of our farmer and biodiversity-friendly approach is that organic farmers will be able to receive organic farming payments and agroforestry premiums on the same area of land.

Roughly two thirds of our landmass is farmland. Therefore, the reality is that if we are to meet our 2050 forestry targets, we will need to count on a massive effort from our farmers. Our farmers will be the primary drivers of our afforestation efforts and they will be the primary beneficiaries of the €1.3 billion programme.

Nothing Coillte has signed up to do changes any of this. The opportunity for farmers remains as it was before the deal. They will benefit most from the new forestry programme. I want to be absolutely clear that any new forests that are focused on timber production will not be monoculture forests. In fact, under the new programme they cannot be monoculture. The days of State-funded monoculture forests with inappropriate setback distances on the wrong soil types are over. This has been something I have been against long before I took office and something I have acted upon in government.

Any forests planted under the new forestry programme for timber production will have a minimum 20% broadleaf content and a minimum 15% area for biodiversity enhancement. But it is not reasonable to ban conifer timber production, as some have suggested we should do. We would be left with the prospect of the unsustainable importation of large volumes of wood and the decimation of our own timber production, which will become increasingly important for sustainable construction in the years ahead and for sustaining rural economies. Coillte has committed to an even balance of trees between conifers and broadleafs and the Government is committed to an even balance. The Tánaiste has said it, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has said it and I am saying it clearly here today.

The financial incentives are clear for everyone to see. All the feedback we are getting from the proposed rates under the new forestry programme is that the demand for native broadleaf trees is far outstripping the demand for conifers. To deliver on this future - and in response to Deputy Carthy, it is an exciting time for forestry - we will need to engage with the people of the future, the jobs of the future and the skills needs of the future as we invest in forestry education and training to manage our vastly expanded and diverse woodlands. It is clear the Government is serious about making progress in forestry. We have spoken a lot this week about Coillte's further direction. I think it is important to mention a key constraint on Coillte's ability to engage in afforestation without private involvement, which is EU state aid rules. A 2003 EU state aid decision ruled that Coillte as a public authority could not receive state aid in the form of annual forestry premium payments. As mentioned by many in government this week, we also are committed to exploring how we might be able to fund Coillte's afforestation efforts directly, either through capital funding or through grant and premium payment under the new forestry programme without breaching new state aid guidelines adopted on 1 January 2023.

Aside from state aid constraints Coillte under its current mandate simply does not have the capital it needs to deliver the scale of this ambition. A huge amount of its profit is re-invested into maintaining and improving its existing forest estate, for example. Coillte's dividend currently goes back to the Exchequer. To take the average dividend over the past five years, to the end of 2021, that is around €30 million per year. Even if the full amount of this average dividend was utilised for afforestation, it would take Coillte in the region of 200 years to do that 100,000 ha of afforestation it has committed to doing. Yes, we do need to look at whether the Government can fund Coillte directly.

To be clear again, however, this fund is not the Government's preferred model to reach its afforestation targets. The preferred model of afforestation is for farmers to plant trees on their land, which is why we have designed the new forestry programme in a way that will pay farmers 33% more in annual premium payments than any other landowner, on top of the single farm payment, which non-farmers do not receive. There is enormous potential for Coillte to establish new native woodlands for biodiversity on lands already in public ownership and suitable for forestry. Coillte is already working closely with local authorities and State bodies to identify such lands. Coillte and Bord na Móna are planting native woodlands on former industrial cutaway peatlands is a great example of this approach. Coillte is also planting new native woodlands through the not-for-profit Nature Trust, and I know the Tánaiste has said we should examine the possibility of the State purchasing land for Coillte to plant further native woodlands and this is something I am happy to explore with the Tánaiste and my Cabinet colleagues.

This debate over the last couple of weeks has however raised the larger question of what we as a State want from Coillte and where its focus should lie. As a Green Party Minister of State, it has always been my belief that Coillte should have less of a focus on delivering a dividend for the State coffers and more of a focus on nature, regeneration and afforestation. Perhaps now is the time to look at Coillte's mandate again. My own party was certainly clear in its general election manifesto in 2020 that we should look at a broader mandate for Coillte, which would deliver multiple benefits including environmental and community objectives as well as the production of high-quality timber. This remains our position. I will continue to pursue this with my Government colleagues. I have always wanted a broader mandate for Coillte and if this debate can bring that forward, it will be a very positive result.

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