Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On that final point on drug debt intimidation, I agree it is something the citizens’ assembly needs to examine as part of its work.

On the issue raised in regard to air PSOs by Deputy Cathal Crowe, we have had a few air PSOs in the past, for example, there was Dublin-Kerry, which we no longer need because it is a commercial service; Dublin-Donegal, which is still there; and Dublin-Derry, which is gone. In the past, to my knowledge, they have always been internal flights. I know they do not have to be internal flights and they can sometimes be international flights, but they have to be public service obligations. My understanding of European law is that we cannot fund them for purposes of tourism or business. It is not that type of connectivity that is considered a public service under European law but, rather, it is people being able to connect to medical appointments and things like that, so it is a higher bar. However, I am not an expert on it at all. I will certainly mention to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, that the Deputy has raised it.

I would very much like to see Shannon connected to a European hub. There are very important transatlantic links into Shannon and a crucial link from Shannon into London Heathrow. I would very much like to assist the airport to secure a European hub like Paris, Frankfurt, Copenhagen or Schiphol, but perhaps there are other mechanisms than PSO to achieve that. One thing we always have to bear in mind is displacement. Displacing a flight from Cork to Shannon or from Knock to Shannon, or vice versa, does not achieve very much, unfortunately. Displacing a flight from Dublin to one of those airports would be a positive thing but no subsidies are provided to Dublin Airport, in fact, quite the reverse. Dublin Airport pays significant dividend profit taxes to the State which we can then use to help other airports and other regions.

On forestry, we now have about 11.5% forestry in Ireland in terms of our land mass, so we are going in the right direction, which is encouraging. The aim is to get to 18%, which is a big ask but something we want to do. We want that mainly to be done by farmers. Farmers own most of the land in Ireland and we want them to be the people who do most of the new forestry. That is why we have the new forestry programme, with attractive grants, incentives, single farm payments and tax concessions for farmers who plant some or all of their land. We really want them to lead on this and to be the main group that delivers for us when it comes to forestry.

We have forestry for lots of different reasons – yes, for climate and as a carbon sink, yes, for biodiversity, and yes, for leisure and tourism, but also for timber. Timber is important. We have a housing crisis and embedded carbon matters. We want more homes built with timber rather than concrete, and that is where conifers come in, so we need to have them as part of our plantation mix. That needs to be borne in mind. We can deal with the climate crisis and the housing crisis at the same time, but it is very hard to do if we do not use timber in houses, and that means conifers.

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