Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Norris for his help. I welcome the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, to the House. It is a great day for the society, the Oireachtas and this House to have a Minister of State from this House coming with legislation and addressing this House. I am delighted that the Minister of State is here. It is an important day for democracy.

I welcome this important Bill. It is badly needed and has been required for a long time. The chaos we have seen in the forestry sector in the last two years has been chaotic. This has been building to a boiling point which we are now at. The Minister of State mentioned that there will be a knock-on effect if we do not pass this legislation. I might have to correct her in that regard. The issues have arrived. I spent yesterday afternoon in Grainger Sawmills in Enniskeane. Some 350 people work there and 200 people are contracted there. They will be on a four-day week from 1 October. Families in west Cork will be looking towards Christmas with their main workers working for four days a week. That is a major issue for me and my community. We are a small, rural community in Enniskeane. It is not a major town. To have the biggest industry in that village go to a four-day week will have a knock-on effect across the entire community in west Cork. It affects the hauliers and the people working in the industry itself.

I took the opportunity this morning to call some of the co-ops in west Cork. If one wants a six by three piece of timber, which is used for building sheds, it cannot be got. There is no supply of six by three timber in west Cork. We will have a scenario where the lads in construction do not have the raw materials to build. Shed construction is stopping because of the lack of timber. In the next few months, we will be importing timber from Scotland, through the port at Passage West, south of Cork. Five shiploads have been booked in for the next three months to keep this sawmill going. It is amazing to think that Ireland must import raw material from Scotland to keep industries alive.The industry is not a major multinational but it is one of the biggest employers in west Cork. We have reached a crisis. Families need to live and rural Ireland needs to survive. This Bill goes some of the way to address the issues. The Minister of State is right that the Bill will sort this issue in the medium and long term. However, we have a major issue in the short term. The ability for us to get out quickly the almost 1 million sq. m that is tied up in the appeals process is going to be the biggest dilemma faced by the Minister of State. I am confident that Members in both Houses of the Oireachtas will work with her over the next two weeks to ensure we get this legislation through. I will do my utmost to ensure that happens. If supply is continuously stopped, my people in west Cork will not have Christmas because they will not have an income going forward. We can pontificate in this House about what is right or wrong, what the name of the Bill should be and what it should contain, but this legislation affects people's lives and I am fighting for their survival here today.

I support the Bill. I also support the people who work in these factories, the people who work in co-ops but cannot get timber, the people who are working on timber-frame housing projects but cannot get timber, and the people who work in pallet-making factories in Macroom but cannot get timber. All of them need to survive and rural Ireland needs to survive. Our biggest dilemma here is to make sure the 1 million sq. m that is tied up with 500 appeals can be released. If that does not happen, Christmas will be cancelled, which would be a major dilemma for this Government and the Oireachtas.

I fully support the Bill as a practical step forward. It gives people the opportunity to lodge an appeal, which is right, and proposes to streamline the process so no one must wait a minimum of 44 weeks for a response even if it is to lay a roadway, a delay which is beyond all belief.

The proposed fee is an appropriate step forward. Some people believe there should not be a fee to lodge an appeal. For a long time one has had to pay a fee to lodge an appeal with An Bord Pleanála. An amendment has been proposed to allow public representatives to lodge appeals through local authorities free of charge. That relates to public representatives because they might need to lodge multiple appeals. However, it is totally impractical to allow multiple appeals to be lodged without paying a fee. That is an important step in this entire thing.

We must discuss the need for an oral hearing because not every case needs one. It is also important that we do not slow down developments.

We need people to plant and to engage. Some Senators who have left the House have an issue with the stigma of planting forestry. I am a farmer so I know that people in the farming community are hesitant about forestry. This debate has added to their fears and that is why there is a reduced interest in forestry. We need to coax people and work with farmers, communities and society. We also need to plant more species other than Sitka spruce. The core agricultural community has a great fear of forestry and the debate over the last two years has set the industry back a decade. The planting figures have plummeted because confidence in the market has reduced and the farming community is less likely to buy into the industry. We must work on this issue.

I support the legislation. I heard the Minister of State's interview on RTÉ Radio One today and I think two weeks is a positive timeline. We must work to ensure it is enacted in the next two weeks and then work to have the FAC up and running. The FAC must react because it is not good enough that only one appeal has been processed since July. Society cannot stand over that. The Government cannot stand over that.They need to be proactive in this space. They need to be turning out these appeals in a just manner. There has been one appeal finalised since July, with industries literally folding in west Cork. That is not good enough. We have an awful lot of work to do. This legislation is the start of the process. The other 1 million sq. m needs to be brought back out and then we need to work together to rebuild the confidence of the sector which has been damaged in the last two years.