Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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199. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason Collite is not contributing to increasing our extremely low forest cover in line with our national forestry targets; the reason public forests are being cleared to be replaced with concrete and steel for private wind energy companies; the reason Coillte is unable to supply the ESB with quality wooden poles to satisfy an extremely lucrative domestic market; and his plans for same. [54626/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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While Coillte reforests some 6,000 ha annually after a crop of timber is harvested the company is not actively involved in afforestation of bare land. Current Government incentives for afforestation include grants generally to private farmers to cover the cost of afforestation and premiums to compensate the landowner for the loss of income. Under EU rules, Coillte is not entitled to receive these premiums. In order for Coillte to afforest land it would first have to acquire it in competition with farmers and secondly it would have to incur the cost of planting it without the benefit of these premiums.

On the issue of wind energy, the Deputy is aware that Ireland has a national renewable energy target to achieve 40% of electricity generation targets from renewable sources including wind by 2020. Coillte plays its role towards achieving this target; currently some 40% of all installed wind generation capacity is on land owned, leased or previously sold by Coillte to facilitate these projects by other State owned and private companies. When sites are being assessed for wind development every effort is made to limit the area of forest that is harvested to accommodate the wind farm and Department of Agriculture policy requires the planting of compensatory lands to ensure the loss of planted area is minimised.

As regards the issue of supply of wooden poles to the ESB, Coillte is working with ESB Networks and Eirgrid to supply as much as possible of their demand from native sources.