Results 18,101-18,120 of 24,010 for speaker:Charlie McConalogue
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: The State will work with farmers but Coillte has done this particular deal.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: That is a standard outline from the Minister to the semi-State organisation in relation to the work it will be doing and it was very much to enable it to continue the work and to do the work in line with its strategic vision, which the company has outlined to Deputy Carthy, as well as to me and to others.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: Coillte has outlined to Deputy Carthy, when it met him, the different ways in which it would do afforestation. One of them was to avail of some private finance. The letter of expectation from me as Minister was to enable Coillte to step out its work on getting towards 100,000 ha of afforestation and to be able to explore the options to facilitate it in doing that.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: Not this particular deal, no. It was the principle of enabling some private investment.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: One of the reasons Coillte stopped doing afforestation in 2004 was because until that point in time, it was able to avail of forestry premiums in the same way anyone else could. After 2004, as a result of a state aid decision, it was no longer able to do that. That then meant that the financials for the company to be able to do afforestation itself did not stack up in the way it had before....
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: In order to do that, it has been looking at options as to how-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: What Coillte is looking at is how it can be enabled to do plantation, in a way that is compliant with state aid rules.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: That has been the reality. Coillte has a target of 100,000 ha of afforestation and has been looking to enable mechanisms to do that. There are three different options. Public land is one of those options.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: Let me finish. Public land is one of those options, also the creation of native forests and one of the options it is exploring is to partner with some private investment. Coillte was stepping out what it had announced it would on how it could get to that stage. We met Coillte last week. It is our clear intention to have the State work with the company more clearly. To enable that, we...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: We can also look-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: -----in relation to premiums and revisiting that issue of State aid.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: I have been very clear to that the way we want to go forward is for Coillte to work with the State. I have asked them to reflect on how we can do that in a way that will work well. We will then look at the state aid to try to make that work, to see how that will work, how it will fit into that and address all that. That is the way we will go forward. If there will be an updated letter, it...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: I thank the Senator for his questions. On state-aid, I explained comprehensively at the briefing for all Oireachtas Members last week that we are engaging daily, as recently as today, with the Commission on preparing our application. I indicated at the Oireachtas meeting last week that it would likely take a month before we could make a formal application. Normally, the Commission takes...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: The state-aid application?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: With regard to SEEFA, any time a new organisation, be it in forestry or agriculture, is set up the Minister cannot, overnight, treat it the same as all of the established organisations that have a track record. Otherwise, one would be incentivising splintering in the representative system. That was the approach taken in respect of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association, INHFA, a...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: I will continue to consider it.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: We have not up until now, and the reason is because one should not encourage the splintering of organisations.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: At the moment, we have not but we are keeping it under review and will be open to it. I refer to planting. As we outlined last week, there are many different licences we can issue at the moment but until we get the new state-aid approval, we cannot issue new afforestation licences.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: There is no news on that.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Policy and Strategy: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (25 Jan 2023)
Charlie McConalogue: We have been very clear in showing how we have addressed the crisis-----