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

I was involved in organising, along with the Save Our Forests Save Our Lands campaign, a protest last week around the debate on Coillte's outrageous deal with Gresham House to buy up large amounts of land and forestry. The demands of that protest were strongly echoed by the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss when it expressed grave concern about the Gresham House deal. It has been said, rightly, that the Forestry Act and the mandate of Coillte need to be radically changed so that Coillte stops acting as a commercial outfit doing forestry in a way that is damaging biodiversity and instead starts to operate for the common and environmental good. The truth is that the Irish forestry model is destroying biodiversity. That is the actuality of the situation. That will be exacerbated by the Gresham House deal or any other such similar deals. I ask the Taoiseach to reconsider the Government's position that it cannot back out of the deal with Gresham House. The Government must back out of this deal because it will contribute to further destruction of biodiversity and move us further down the wrong road when we need to listen to what the Citizens' Assembly is saying about forestry in this country.

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