Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We are cognisant of that and need to look into it. We have made mistakes in the past in terms of what we have done with our peatlands and forestry. There are also some good examples. It is not good to be negative all the time about it. Our engagement with the public and stakeholders this year has been like nothing before. I welcome the general warm welcome for the programme. I know the public consultation on the strategy and the programme is still ongoing and I ask people to engage with that. If there are any specific questions, I can probably get back to Members directly. A number of parliamentary questions on the number of ecologists involved with licensing have been answered so those details should be available.

Senator Boylan mentioned the amendment to the appeals legislation in 2020. That was successful in removing the backlog because we increased the number of forestry appeals committees from one to four, which quadrupled the turnaround of the appeals. We still get appeals in, which is the right way. We need to allow that access to justice but we have a system that is much more efficient at dealing with appeals.

I think the overall sense was that it is important to get this right. The short-term part of this is the forestry programme, which will be for the next five years. It will be subject to a mid-term review. We can see what is working, what is working really well and whether parts of it are not working. There is potential to amend that at that stage. I look forward to farmers engaging with this. As I said in my opening statement, it will be subject to state aid approval from the Commission, which will not be a straightforward process. We must find that balance. The Commission will be looking to us in terms of environmental outputs from our forestry programme while we are spending €1.6 billion. What is the return across the board? It is important to say that this balance needs to shine through.

If there is anything I have not dealt with, I am happy to deal with it. Senators can contact my office. It is clear that we share a common desire for the next forestry programme to be a success. That is important. We know afforestation is a key tool in our attempts to mitigate climate change and all the co-benefits that can come from trees in the future. It is fair to say that we do not come from a culture of tree planting in Ireland. We have plantation forests and have one of the youngest forest stocks in Europe. We do not have those 100- or 150-year-old massive swathes of forest that are potentially managed in a continuous cover way. We are not there yet. We are a way from that but we have to do what we can to embark on that process and keep the sector and those rural economies going. However, that must be balanced with environmental outcomes and that is what we aim to do. I thank Senators for their comments.