Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Acting Leader to arrange a debate on the forestry sector. It is long overdue. We receive a dashboard from the forestry division in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine every month and they make for startling results. Forestry in this country is in crisis and we need to do something about it. The national forestry policy was launched last year and then we heard of the need for a formal state aid notification and application to the European Commission. After months and months of debate at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, of which Senator Lombard is a member, and in both Houses of the Oireachtas, the Minister of State with responsibility for forestry could not tell me the date on which the details were sent to the Commission. We now know it was on 20 April of this year. We need a debate on forestry.

I call for a compensation package for ash dieback disease. The problem is obvious around the country at this time of the year because the leaves have fallen off ash trees and branches are falling onto the middle of public roads. What do we need? We need a forestry programme that benefits landowners, farmers, rural communities and the rural and national economy and also meets our climate goals and objectives. I call for a debate on forestry in this country.