Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, line 24, to delete “This Act” and substitute “Subject to subsection (3), this Act".

Amendment No. 1 facilitates amendment No. 2, which proposes the insertion of a substantial new subsection into the Act. The subsection proposed in amendment No. 2 is a longer amendment than I would usually submit. That is because there is a significant and real concern about the way these issues have been addressed and the fact that these provisions which change the Forestry Act were introduced by ministerial amendment on Committee Stage of the Bill in the Dáil. They were not there, for example, when issues of pre-legislative scrutiny were being considered and they have not undergone the same kind of process. We have a Bill tackling the very important issue of fur farming among others, which I know colleagues in the Chamber are going to speak to, and then we had a very substantial shift in forestry added in, which gives extraordinary discretionary powers to the Minister.

It is important that we make it clear that we cannot simply choose to pull the Forestry Act and its applications from a number of areas. One of the very first areas that was debated in the other House was the forestry licensing issue. A former Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine in this Oireachtas acknowledged that Ireland was performing incredibly poorly and had been pulled up by Europe for failing to apply proper screening and failing to deliver proper procedures in our approach to forestry licensing. That was the core cause of why we had appeals. It was because we were not doing things right. That was two years ago. What the Minister of State should be bringing through to us is examples of how we are improving forestry licensing, screening and environmental assessment, and how we are thinking about things better, not more and more attempts to get out of it and to not have to do it. If in the past two years we had put the same energy as a State into significantly improving environmental assessment, appropriate assessment and screening and doing the groundwork, we would not have yet another measure which says "Can we just skip this bit?". We cannot skip it. There are European laws. If the Minister of State wants to bring in measures allowing for exemptions from the system that we have, she must make sure she does everything that those systems do.

This is a very roundabout attempt to take a shortcut that is going to delay progress in forestry. For example, it would not be appropriate to commend section 9, which deals with the exemptions for forestry, unless there had been, as is set out in the amendment, a report on all of the areas where there are sensitivities and unlicensed planting could not be permitted. Those are areas sensitive for reasons of biodiversity and landscape. We know that Ireland is lagging behind in its designation of special areas of conservation and natural heritage. That is not to say that forestry planting might not happen in those areas, but it must be done in an enlightened and proper way. There are areas that are sensitive for archaeological and additional reasons. These are all factors that need to be properly considered. The Oireachtas must have this on the table, agreed and clear, before we can agree to the Minister's suggestion of removing the safeguards that currently exist.

The completion of assessments that are required is fundamental, as is public consultation on the draft regulations. I will go into a couple of them in more detail. This is going to be a very substantive amendment because it is trying to repair the multiple gaps in what is currently proposed. It also specifies that there would be a report on what the system would be in terms of providing visibility and tracking of which areas might be exempted and ensuring compliance with the directives on the access to information and the Aarhus Convention on public participation in decision-making. I am not trying to add these in; they already exist, I am pointing out that the Minister cannot simply remove them or bypass them. The systems are already there and if the proper resources were put into them, they could be operating and could deliver.

In later amendments I outline that I am very happy for the Minister to have additional incentives and grants for native trees, but what we cannot do is try to move out of the system. I will go through a couple of the pieces that have been here, such as the fact that there is an attempt to remove some of the measures in terms of consent. We know that the European legislation is very clear that we cannot bypass the consent legislation for afforestation. For a plan, we need to have screening for projects. In the case of each project, we must ask whether it needs an environmental impact assessment or an appropriate assessment. That mechanism needs to be there, and it is not currently in the Bill.

Regardless of its size, a forest is subject to the European obligation for screening and proper consent processes still apply to it. The climate argument is being invoked. I believe we need to have more afforestation in terms of climate action, but even the Climate Change Advisory Council is extremely clear in its technical document that it must be "the right tree in the right place".That is a phrase the Minister of State has used and yet what is proposed here is a kind of a blanket space that says here are some trees and as long as the space is a certain size-----