Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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1425. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the position regarding the continued removal of chalara-infected ash trees in view of the fact that the disease has been found in all 26 counties; his views on whether the current removal of young ash trees is curbing the spread of the disease; his further views on whether the continued expenditure of taxpayers' money is justified in view of the widespread nature of the disease; and his plans for the forest service to switch to advising forest owners on longer term solutions to this problem (details supplied) rather than the complete removal of their ash trees in the interests of forest sustainability and making the best use of taxpayers' money. [1189/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy has noted there was a very significant increase in the incidence of Ash Dieback disease or Chalara in 2016, most notably in forest plantations. By autumn 2016 there were also a significant number of additional findings along motorway and roadside plantings and in the wild on hedgerows, as well as a smaller number of new cases recorded in private gardens and in farm landscape plantings. Furthermore, there is an increasing diversity in the types of sites where the disease has been identified, with over half the recent findings in forest plantations in ash trees of native Irish origin. A detailed breakdown of these figures as well as a national distribution map of findings is accessible on the dedicated section of the Department’s website. Taken together these findings do indicate a continual widening distribution of the disease and that the disease is present, to a greater or lesser extent, in all 26 counties.

In view of the increasing prevalence of the disease and further to feedback from affected forest owners and other forest sector stakeholders on aspects of the Department’s Reconstitution Scheme, Department officials are currently in the process of updating the policies and procedures around it. One area where there will be an increased focus going forward is on encouraging forest owners with older plantations with bigger trees to avail of the Woodland Improvement Scheme to finance a thinning operation to assist in bringing the plantation to a merchantable stage. The requirements around sanitation action plans and for the complete destruction of both affected and unaffected ash trees which currently operate under the Scheme are also being re-considered. A consultation document on proposed changes to the Scheme was circulated to a focus group of forestry stakeholder representatives in December and the technical submissions received are now being assessed by my officials.

The Department is also actively supporting a number of research projects into the control and management of the disease, in particular projects with a key long-term focus of developing an ash tree breeding programme to identify trees that show strong tolerance and/or resistance to the disease and the genetic basis for tolerance. It is through such programmes that a long term strategy for ash can be identified and supported. More details of the research actions the Department has participated in and/or is supporting financially (either wholly or in part) can be accessed on the dedicated section its website.

I am firmly of the view that for us to tackle this disease as effectively as possible, especially if we wish to mitigate the most adverse impacts on individual forest owners and the national forest estate more generally, the current Reconstitution Scheme operated by my Department and other complementary schemes such as the Woodland Improvement Scheme need to be both maintained and promoted. The continued expenditure of tax payers' money to these ends, where properly targeted and duly accounted for by the beneficiaries, in my view is justified and clearly is in the  interest of environmental sustainability, in particular the maintenance of our area of national forest cover, as well as helping to ensure that the fullest economic and social benefits accrue to Irish society through the productive management of our forests.