Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 101: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the reasons for the cut in planned spending on forestry in 2007; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40583/06]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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I have provided sufficient funds in the 2007 Estimates to encourage a renewed planting effort, intended in the first instance to restore annual afforestation rates to at least 10,000 hectares. We should not underestimate the challenge which lies before us in this regard and the draft Rural Development Programme for the 2007-2013 period takes this into account, incorporating several new and innovative measures to attract farmers into forestry. The overall amount of funding allocated to forestry under the Programme amounts to just under 1 billion (968 million). These are demand-led schemes and my intention is to stimulate that demand in so far as possible, ultimately it is a matter for individual land owners to choose to plant some or all of their land. In this context issues such as price of land and competing land use alternatives play a major role.