Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Again there is a recognition of some of the failures but not of the failure of the Minister of State's Department. The prevailing failure was very stark when, on 8 February, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, told the agriculture committee that 1,000 ha had been planted in January.

The members of the committee were pleasantly surprised but the figure surprised them as that would mark a sea change. When that was put to the Minister he said, "Yes, there has been a sea change". However, it turned out that the figure was actually 66 ha. The Minister of State, Senator Hackett, was in the room with Deputy McConalogue when he made that statement. All the senior officials dealing with afforestation in the Department were in the room and not one corrected him, to say he was out by several hundred percentage points in his assertion. My question again is, what is going to happen in the immediacy in regard to the new forestry scheme? At the moment there is a bizarre situation whereby if somebody has land and wants to enter into afforestation, he or she cannot even submit an application. That is how ludicrous the situation is at present.

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