Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

An RTÉ reporter in our part of the world, Pat McAuliffe, died in the last few days. He was a very well-known sports journalist. I met him several times at Cork City matches over the years. He is an awful loss not only to the sporting world but to Cork's sporting community. I register my deepest sympathies to his family and the Cork community. Pat was a lovely, jolly man. Every time one met him, he had a kind word. He is an awful loss to us in that part of the world.

This week is National Tree Week. We need to start talking about it. We published a comprehensive report regarding climate change last week. We included nearly 40 recommendations in a comprehensive, ten chapter, all-of-Government report, and most parties bought into the concept behind it. It is important that we acknowledge that this week is a week where we try to promote the planting of trees and people getting involved in that. The turn of the millennium was 19 years ago. We put a project in place where we planted a tree for every person in the State. Perhaps 20 years on, we need to look at another similar project, with the State getting behind a proposal of planting a tree for every person in the State in 2020. Perhaps the Seanad could lead on this issue. We could get the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine into the House to have a debate on the proposal to plant a tree for every person in the State. It would take into consideration so much of what has changed in the world. Climate change is a significant issue. Perhaps the State and local authorities need to be the driver for growing trees. We will have a 12-month period to plan it. It is sustainable. The millennium forest is now 19 years old and was a very positive step. Let us push forward and have another drive to ensure that we can get another 4 million trees planted by the State next year to celebrate our commitment to climate change and what we need to do.