Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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61. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on the ash dieback scheme recently announced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38144/24]

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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What are the views of the Minister on the recently announced ash dieback scheme? Will the Minister of State make a statement on the matter?

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Senator Pippa Hackett):

I thank Deputy Wynne for the question. In May this year I received approval from Cabinet for an ash dieback action plan to implement the recommendations in the report of the independent review group, which I commissioned. The action plan addresses all 13 of the review group's recommendations. It provides for, among other things, an additional €79.5 million in funding to pay for a new climate action performance payment, CAPP, scheme. This payment of €5,000 per hectare is available to forest owners who fully engage with my Department's reconstitution schemes and carry out replanting. This now brings the overall financial package available to ash plantation owners who are dealing with or have dealt with ash dieback to over €230 million. I believe it is a fair and generous scheme. It was hard fought for and it delivers significant supports for those farmers impacted by this devastating disease in their plantations.

As part of the action plan, a task force was established with the responsibility of overseeing the implementation of the plan. This task force comprises officials from my Department and stakeholders, including ash forest owners. The role of the task force is to ensure that the plan is implemented in an effective way, with a co-ordinated response and resolution of obstacles to implementation. The task force has met twice, discussing each of the recommendations and associated actions and responses. Some useful clarifications have been made and actions agreed to progress the implementation of the plan.

My Department has been receiving applications for the CAPP first instalment since late August and will commence payments in the coming weeks. For the applications received so far there will be payments of over €1 million. There are many more ash owners eligible to apply for the first instalment and I strongly encourage them to do so through . I also encourage those ash forest owners who have not yet applied for the enhanced reconstitution scheme to do so. This will give them financial support to clear and reconstitute affected sites and will also enable them to apply for the new climate action performance payment of €5,000 per hectare.

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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I appreciate the information. This has been a long-standing issue that I have raised with the Minister of State and through committees. The IFA farmers in particular were hoping for a grant of some sort to ensure the local authority would head up the removal of the roadside trees. The current issue is that the farmer is liable if the tree were to fall or any such incident. The farmers have said it would be most appropriate if there was a scheme in place for the local authority to identify the trees and take them out safely. It does require a significant amount of expertise. It is hard to distinguish between trees that are dead and those that are still good trees. They also drop in a fashion that is not quite normal. The Minister of State has outlined the plan. Does that take into account the expertise requirement that is needed?

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Senator Pippa Hackett):

The plan I outlined relates to plantation ash forestry only and plantation ash that was grant-aided through my Department in recent years. The Deputy has raised an important issue about the widespread nature of the disease. It impacts the vast majority. There may be 1% or 2% of trees that might not be as impacted so badly. It is a widespread disease and is endemic now across Europe. There is a lot of criticism pointed at our Department that somehow we were responsible for its importation. It is endemic across Europe and it was always going to arrive on Ireland's shores, unfortunately.

I met with the IFA yesterday on issues to do with forestry and this was one of the issues that came up. Certainly the scheme I outlined in my opening statement pertains to plantation forestry. There is a need to address other ash trees across the countryside but responsibility for this does not lie wholly with my Department. A whole-of-government approach is certainly needed over the coming years to deal with those trees.

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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I appreciate the clarification on the information the Minister of State has provided. I agree that there does need to be an interdepartmental action on this. As far as the IFA is concerned, the solution or the pathway is there. The local authority would be the best placed body to remove the roadside ash trees in a safe manner. That is taking everybody's best interests into consideration. Yes, the IFA has criticised the Department of agriculture because it believes that it is an unfair amount of pressure to place on landowners, given that it was down to the Government's mismanagement. I appreciate that the problem is all across Europe but this again points to biosecurity measures. We recently saw the discovery of a bark beetle in Cratloe and I believe it has now extended to Cork as well. The landowners feel that they need support on this issue as it is not something they can undertake on their own.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I will take a supplementary question from Deputy Durkan.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Following up on the last line of questions, what is the extent to which research continues to take place in order to establish the effect on other species or a variation of the disease affecting other species? Regarding the various ash species, for example, American ash, has that species been affected to the same extent? From casual observation, it does not look like as though it has. This might be of some interest to people who find themselves in the position of having to replace forestry.

Pippa Hackett (Green Party)
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I thank both Deputies. I am open to correction on this but I think species like mountain ash do not seem to be as impacted but certainly it has impacted those plantations and also our native species, which have been here for centuries. It is definitely having an impact but some trees are showing signs of more resilience to it. Teagasc is very active in research in this space. It is trying to identify existing species here that are resilient to it or developing a new species. The ash tree is synonymous with Ireland. It is a native tree and it is important that we do whatever we can to support it into the future. It is heartbreaking to see the decimation across the countryside now. If there was some hope that we would eventually have a new, resilient species, that would be brilliant. I take on board the comments regarding the wider impacts and the role of local authorities, Transport Infrastructure Ireland and Irish Rail in this regard. A number of State agencies will have a role to play in a cross-government approach to this issue.