Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach, the Leas-Chathaoirleach and all my fellow Senators for their contributions. I welcome the fact there has been a great deal of engagement from the House on this, which is very useful to me.

I reiterate that the purpose of amending the existing legislation is to improve the functioning of the forestry appeals system so that it will meet the needs of all the stakeholders involved. They range from appellants to foresters, and the whole way through. The proposals in the Bill will provide citizens with a full and open opportunity to make their views on forestry projects known to an independent and adequately resourced forestry appeals committee.I also believe these changes mean that timely decisions on such appeals by the FAC, which these changes aim to facilitate, will be a fair and just response to applicants and interested third parties.

I note the support I have received in the House for the Bill and thank the Senators who have spoken to that. I also appreciate there are concerns about the Bill. I am appreciative of those who have engaged with its details. On balance, in taking account of the public consultation exercise, I believe I have presented a Bill that reflects the majority support expressed but also expresses the main reservations submitted in the consultation.

I remind Senators Ahearn, Keogan and Carrigy thatthis is about job losses. This is urgent and that is what is driving the urgency of the Bill. In an ideal world we would fix the forestry programme, that would have a knock-on effect and we would have a process where nothing is appealed but unfortunately we are not in an ideal world. I have inherited this problem, which has escalated to the extent that jobs are on the line. I am not willing to gamble with those jobs by delaying the process. While I appreciate the concerns about the haste of the legislation, it is emergency legislation, in essence. It is a gamble I am not willing to take. However, I will listen to and read any amendments.

Senator Mullen raised the important issue of the attraction of spruce to farmers as a crop. If we want to diversify the type of tree we grow, we must address that. The next stage will be to see how we can encourage more diverse plantations, more diverse species and more continuous cover.

I welcome the acknowledgement of the public consultation. It was valuable and really well subscribed to, despite the timing and its short nature. It is not usual to put legislation to the public at an early stage. I understand the frustration that the submissions are not yet available. It takes time to redact email addresses from 8,000 or 9,000 submissions. The process is ongoing and they will be available as soon as possible. Once the submissions came in, the attention was on their content. Senators were issued, albeit quite late, with a report on the submissions this morning. I hope that has helped somewhat.

I hope I have addressed concerns about the speed of the legislation. People have raised concerns about fees. The payment of a fee is a long-standing requirement for other appeals boards such as An Bord Pleanála and the Aquaculture Licences Appeals Board. The intent is not to make it prohibitive. The fees will help in a small way to offset the cost of conducting the appeal. The appeals to the FAC are costing around €1,000 per appeal, which is quite costly. Taxpayers are paying for that now. The fee would only go towards a small portion of that.

On the nature of the appeals, until we opened the consultation up to July, approximately 30% of Coillte licences were appealed, for example. Between the opening of the consultation and the end of August, 100% of Coillte licences were appealed. That has increased the pressure on the FAC exponentially. With greater pressure on the committee, the legislation is now more badly needed.The implications of the forestry sector do not end, as many Senators highlighted, with the sawmills. There are knock-on effects. There is the plywood. There is the pallet-making. The pallet sector in Ireland is considerable and it has knock-on effects. For example, the personal protection equipment, PPE, that comes into the country or that we move around the country will be on a pallet. That wooden pallet is made. In fairness, if it is imported, it has come from somewhere else. However, we generate a great deal of pallet wood and it is vital across sectors, such as the food and drink sector. Pallets are everywhere. Anywhere there is a warehouse, anything in it is on a wooden pallet. That sector is importing wood now to make pallets. That is such an obvious issue that affects the whole supply chain. The reach of timber product in Ireland is far and wide. It is coming into sharp reality now. I am even wondering where a bit of plywood has come from or what have I got in my shed, is it Irish, etc. It is good to be aware of how important that sector is.

I do not want to dismiss the concerns about this Bill because they are completely valid. In fact, wider points were raised about forestry in general in the country and I would agree wholeheartedly with most of those. We need a different way to do forestry in this country. Senator Higgins referenced the Green Party's close-to-nature forestry motion which received cross-party support in the Dáil last year. In fact, the bulk of that makes up the bulk of the commitments on forestry in the programme for Government. It is ambitious. We got agreement in the programme for Government talks.

This particular piece of legislation was another piece - one part of the commitments made in regard to forestry. It is a programme for Government commitment. It is historic and it is based on legacy, but we are where we are. It would be irresponsible of me to ignore the crisis in the sector but by all means, I want to fix it. If we get this right and we develop a new system of and vision for forestry, we will hopefully get to that stage where we do not have appeals because the model is right and the licensing process is right and meets all the criteria. That is where I want to get to - a system where we do not need a busy appeals committee.

I welcome the engagement, even from those who are disappointed with this Bill, to engage further afterwards in developing a new policy for forestry. Senator Boyhan commented on the nature of Green Party members and councillors making submissions. As a party, we are fine with that. From a party perspective, we encourage that diversity in our party. It helps us come to better decisions. Neither I nor any of my Green Party colleagues have an issue with that. As I said, the priority was to examine those submissions. That, unfortunately, is why the submissions are not all up on a website to look at.

There were questions asked and I have made a note of them. I will get back with specific answers to those questions. I am afraid my notes are all over the shop here. All of this is new.

I thank the House for the engagement. I believe that this Bill will strengthen the forestry sector and the importance of that sector has to be appreciated. However, forestry can do more for our country. We are way behind on the levels. We have only 11% of our land in forestry. It is a pittance compared with most European countries and when one visits European countries, one is not necessarily crowded by trees. There is plenty of space. We have plenty of land to do it on. We should focus on those environmental and community needs.We have much to learn but we can have these conversations with people and learn from them. That needs to inform us moving forward. I look forward to doing that and to the Senators' engagement on it.