Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am aware of some concerns. The Deputy may be meeting different people from those I have met, because the programme was warmly welcomed. After a long period, it was great to get the programme across the line last September. It has been warmly welcomed and there has been great engagement at the many forestry promotion events across the country that Teagasc, private forestry owners and private forestry companies have been running. There is engagement there and a desire among people to plant trees.

There are some legacy confidence issues that we still need to address. We have established an afforestation technical working group in the Department to tease out some of the teething problems that have arisen. As the Deputy knows, we worked really hard to get the forestry programme across the line. It took longer than I, the officials in my Department and those in the sector would have liked. We had to go to great lengths to get the forestry programme across the line and to get Commission approval, which was much needed. We would not have a forestry programme at all had we not put that effort into it.

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