Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal East, Labour)

I thank the Minister of State for his detailed and very clear response in relation to this. As he articulated, the storms caused unprecedented damage, felling tens of thousands of hectares, wiping out years of growth and inflicting huge economic losses. There is encouragement in the Minister of State's response. An estimated 26,000 ha of forest has been felled or destroyed, impacting the long-term investment income retirement security of many foresters. They have been severely eroded. The Minister of State can understand that many of them are looking for urgent clarity. I know he said it will be in the coming weeks. I am not trying to pin him down too much because his response was detailed, and I think it will give an awful lot of encouragement. However, does he think there will be greater visibility on how that scheme will look maybe this side of Christmas or are we looking at the first few weeks of January? That is my follow-up question.

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