Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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44. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the involvement his Department has for the development of alternative forestry strategies to assist the development and creation of jobs in rural areas and avoid isolation in rural communities in view the recent concerns relating to the concentration of new forestation in counties such as County Leitrim. [25903/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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There are no county by county or regional targets for forestry planting in Ireland. The grants and premiums offered by my Department’s afforestation scheme are available to all landowners regardless of which county they are located. My Department has funded afforestation in every county in Ireland.

It is important that farmers in particular have the opportunity to improve their incomes by choosing forestry as a land use option on their farms. The sector as a whole already makes a positive contribution across the country supporting 12,000 jobs in various activities such as planting, harvesting, transportation and processing. Most of these jobs are located in rural areas where attracting direct investment can be more challenging. In 2017 it is estimated that private forest owners received in the region of €25m in revenues from timber sales and almost €67million in forest premium payments. The cycle of economic activity continues into the next rotation as clear-felled forests are replanted.

According to the All Ireland Roundwood Forecast 2016 – 2035 output from Irish forests is expected to double over the coming decades to 8 million cubic metres. Most of this increased production will come from private forest owners. The key to creating additional forestry jobs in rural communities is the mobilisation of this timber in the years to come. This will allow the sector to grow existing markets and establish new markets; most importantly with the proper support in terms of research and development new products can be developed adding value to this indigenous raw material. There are, however, several barriers to getting this timber to market and the Department has been particularly active in this area. These barriers include the need to build more forest roads and a lack of forest management knowledge amongst many private forest owners.

To address these barriers, the midterm review increased the level of support for building forest roads and improved the grant scheme that encourages forest owners to thin their broadleaf forests. A new scheme establishing a network of knowledge transfer groups for forestry, is due to be launched shortly following a successful pilot. The aim of this initiative is to empower forest owners with the knowledge to actively manage their forests.

Development of new markets at home and abroad for new added value wood products will also lead to job creation across the sector. To this end my Department through COFORD launched its vision for moving the utilisation of timber up the value chain in its document entitled “Growing the Irish Forest Bioeconomy”. My Department’s support for the bioeconomy is also demonstrated through its funding of research in this area. For example the Innovation in Irish Timber Usage project (IITU) investigated the potential for new add-value timber construction products such as Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) reinforced timber and Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT).

There is no doubt that there is significant potential to create further employment in the forestry sector across the country including in County Leitrim. The key to doing so is the mobilisation of the existing timber resource, expanding and creating new markets for Irish timber and supporting innovation in product development.