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

It is about the overwhelming dominance of sitka. It is an accident waiting to happen from of biodiversity point of view when we consider the pine weevil and the bark beetle that is moving across Europe and so on. It would damage the economic interests of farmers. We can see how things such as ash dieback can happen very quickly. We need to diversify the forest model in terms of biodiversity and the economic sustainability of it. Where is the research into developing markets for alternative forest products for a more diversified forestry model? It is not happening. There is a complete dependence on the single model, which is an accident waiting to happen, and which has meant that the EU has stated that the Ireland's forestry programme simply will not cut it. This is why there was such uproar from communities, farmers, environmentalists and just about everybody over the Gresham House deal because it would have expanded an already failed forestry model to the benefit of vulture funds. That needs to change.

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