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Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

Mr. Brendan Gleeson: I thank the Chairman and members for the invitation to speak about the forest strategy today. For the past 100 years we have been creating new forests in Ireland and the forest strategy builds on this legacy. We have gone from 1% forest cover in 1900 to nearly 12% today, which is the highest it has been for 350 years. Forestry is a priority for the Department and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

...where we are developing a communications strategy. We are trying to talk to farmers about the relative benefits of this. The policy we have is to give people choices about what they do with their land and this is a choice. It stacks up very well for a proportion of people's land, but it is also the case farmers have a very deep attachment to the traditional activities they do on land...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

Mr. Barry Delany: A number of them are. The shortest turnaround time would be 67 days for a file that would have come in in January. It would have been on broadly agricultural land with no environmental constraints and got through very quickly. Those ones that can screen out have come in since January. Most of the new afforestation approval applications have come since January, of those...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

Michael Fitzmaurice: ...they change the environmental rules, farmers will not be planting. Mr. Gleeson should get that into his head. It is for the simple reason that the 30 cm rule is going to get rid of a heap of land. People will then go to a higher quality of land that a tillage person or a dairy person would also be looking for because of the derogation. Mr. Gleeson is over all of the Department and he...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

...on the type of tree planted. Another thing is we got an extra five years for farmers. Up to this point, they only got 15 years' premium. We wanted to differentiate between farmers, who are the primary landowners in Ireland, and other investors, so we got an extra five years’ premium for farmers. I mentioned some of the figures in my opening speech and I do not want to repeat...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

...for people so they can continue farming in the field and plant trees at a much looser density and that is an attractive option for farmers. Regarding the permanence, I get that. It is a permanent land use change but what we cannot have is deforestation. I hear the view expressed that this is not going to happen because if the forest is there for 25 or 30 years, it will be replanted....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

Mr. Brendan Gleeson: We could. Right now, we do not have a target for land use as part of our national climate plan. We do not have a target for emissions from land as opposed to agricultural activity. In Ireland, land is a net emitter because of the significance of our peatlands that are drained and in agricultural use. The Senator mentioned the Teagasc work on the assessment of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

Mr. Brendan Gleeson: I said land was a net emitter.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Hedgerows are sitting on the land.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

Jackie Cahill: ...attractive, the reality is after 20 years, they are going to be waiting an awful long time for any other payday. Until we address that issue, that there will be a long-term payment strategy for land, farmers are not going to make the decision to afforest. We are trying to afforest better-quality land at the moment due to various restrictions. As for the attractiveness of leasing land...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

...relevant environmental conditions. We have a commercial sector here that might say this represents a complication in producing commercial timber. There is a Teagasc report on emissions from peatland, but I believe it relates to the assumption that peatland under agricultural use is completely drained. The Teagasc analysis concluded that some of the drains have not been cleared for quite...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forest Strategy Implementation Plan: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (8 May 2024)

Mr. Brendan Gleeson: I do but I am pretty certain that no matter what is included, because of the significant emissions from drained peat lands, land in Ireland is a net emitter even if hedgerows are included. Not all land is a net emitter, because drained mineral soils are a net sequesterer for example. But the net balance is that land is a net emitter. I am not the best person to say...