Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join in the warm welcome to the Minister of State. We take pride in her appointment in this House. It re-establishes an old precedent and should be a source of encouragement to some of our younger Senators that they might emulate this in the future. If I am right, the precedent goes back to Senator Dooge. I am not sure who was the last.

I welcome the legislation. There are all sorts of extraneous points we would all like to make but if I read it correctly, the legislation is effectively tidying up the appeals process. It is reforming and making the appeals process efficient and workable. That is from a situation where we have a totally non-existent appeals process in that we need a deputy chair of the appeals committee, we need to have sub-committees functioning, and we need to have a workable quorum on a given day. There is no way that any other body could function in the way it is currently functioning. It needs efficiencies in its operation. It is horrendous that we have the level of appeals that exists. It is not explicit or implicit in the legislation that we would in any way take away from the right to appeal. That is sacrosanct. Those who want to appeal for the right reasons would want an efficient outcome and an efficient system to respond to them. The only people who benefit from the current situation are those who just want to hold up the entire process for all sorts of vexatious purposes, to use the term used earlier. We at the point of importing timber now.It is unthinkable that this would become the norm and we have to thwart it. I exhort the Minister of State, although I think it is her plan, to make an holistic - for want of a better word - plan for forestry in this country. While we must address the balance between Sitka spruce, on the one hand, and oak trees and other native species, we also have to pay attention to the concentration. I do not think there is a Senator who would suggest taking lumps out of County Leitrim, for example, to plant trees and putting people out of the area. That is not the agenda. There has to be a process and a spatial development plan for forestry.

I have a background in farming, given that my family were farmers. On every farm, particularly in the area of Cavan, Longford and Leitrim, there will be 8 or 10 non-arable acres that could not only be planted, provide a shelter and have a beneficial effect on our environment as a carbon sink, but also add to the economy through timber production and so on. That needs active promotion and support. We have to promote our forestry in a spatial, regional and properly organised way. The jobs are crucial, and the numbers of jobs at issue are colossal.

We all tend to bring these matters to a parochial level but there is no great harm if we understand or relate to them in those terms. I know a Maguire family who are very entrepreneurial and enterprising. The mum sat on Cavan County Council with me and two of the brothers run a business in the felling and transporting of timber. I imagine the family will be known to Senator Carrigy. On the Cavan-Leitrim border, where one might say 20 jobs are the equivalent of 120 jobs in Dublin, their business provides in the region of 20 jobs. That is repeated throughout the country, so we have to address it.

I welcome the legislation and will support it. It is really important that we try to get our forestry industry functioning so we can fell and plant trees, yet we have to have a robust appeals system. The two aspects are not mutually exclusive. I urge the Minister of State to try to develop a cohesive, regionally based, worked out policy for forestry so that it is not concentrated in any one county or any set of parishes but rather is spread in a reasonable fashion. She should consider seriously what I say about incentivising farmers to plant what they are not using. The Government would meet all its forestry targets at once, apart from the developing of commercial forestry. Coillte is doing tremendous work near my home at the Castle Lake area of Bailieborough and the demesne there. It is doing great work with nature walks and so on. I commend all that.

The Bill is good and is a great start. I am very optimistic about what the Minister of State will do in this sphere. She has indicated today that she means business.