Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendment and wish to make a few general points. I support what has been said about the pace with which the Bill has been brought through. The problems, the arrears and the backlog must have been developing for far longer than the past few months, and it is an awful pity that this problem was not addressed earlier. I am also conscious of the fact that the crisis that has taken place in the forestry business and forestry sector, with the destruction of saplings and so on, is a sign of weak administration, unfortunately.

I support the principle of the Minister's Bill. We have to balance the rights of the Irish community as a whole to pursue its afforestation targets with the rights of some people who assert the right to object to or to obstruct the implementation of this. In November last year a much-missed former Member of this House, Marie-Louise O'Donnell, queried what the then Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, was fixing as afforestation targets. He said 250 million trees would be planted in Ireland by 2030. He made this commitment in 2018. Now we are amending that slightly. We have pushed the goalposts out to 400 million trees by 2040.