Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It really is not good enough to keep using the phrase "the very near future". I have been getting that in replies for months. It has been seven months. I met with farmers in Galway a number of weeks ago. I met some in Wexford two weeks ago. They are broken. They put significant work into the plantations and they are dying. They are being left. It has been years and they are waiting for supports. To say that it will happen in the very near future is just not good enough. Seven months ago, that independent review group told us nothing we did not know already. That wasted months and months. It did its report and fair play to it. Its conclusion was that this is an emergency. It is now seven months later and farmers are still waiting. The new forestry programme will not go anywhere if we do not get farmers' buy-in. That is not happening. Confidence in that programme is extremely low.

If we do not solve the issue of ash dieback, I will not blame a single farmer for not looking to join the forestry programme. This is an emergency and we need to know what the Minister of State means when she refers to the very near future.

See this speech in context