Paraic Brady (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I raise the matter of our forestry that has been damaged in the recent storm, which amounts to 5,000 ha on the ground. It seems we have not learned from our mistakes. In this situation, local enough to where I live in County Longford and at the border with Coole, County Westmeath, more forests are being planted to the very edge of a road. These are currently mounded in a peaty soil right to the edge of the road. Will the Minister of State in charge, Deputy Healy-Rae, come to the Chamber to address the current problems? We are harvesting plantations with licences that are standing and are leaving plantations that have windfall on the ground.

There is currently two years' worth of forestry on the ground, which is losing value day on day and has a carbon footprint that everybody knows is negative. I ask for an action plan to be put in place. I spoke about this previously, but it seems we are getting very slow at implementing change. We need to bring processors, harvesters, Coillte and the organised bodies together to have a task force in place where we can manage the harvesting of all this forestry that is on the ground. It is losing value day on day, pensions are being lost out of this and farmers are getting very annoyed with the slow rate of knowing who they should go to, where the advice is and how they should deal with the windblow. I ask for an action plan to be put in place, with Teagasc, the IFA and the farming organisations on board, to try to get some progress regarding the harvesting of these plantations.