In regard to the opening up of forests I was asked why this has not been done, but I should like to point out that it is being done. In the next 12 months, under the plans for European conservation year, there will be special projects designed to interest our young people in forests which will enable them to adopt a section of a forest in their locality, visit it and be responsible, to some extent, for its development. In that way we hope to make our young people aware of the advantages and the beauty of forests, developed and developing.
I have mentioned European conservation year and, perhaps, I should draw the attention of certain newspaper writers, who talk about a lack of interest on the part of Ministers in the question of conservation, to the statements I made both inside the House and outside it in regard to this very important matter, and particularly in regard to European conservation year. During European conservation year I hope to put an idea into operation, which is, to provide play centres in forests for younger children coming out on day trips from the cities.
I am sure it will be a pleasant change for children going to school in urban areas to be able to go to a local forest on a day trip. I have already mentioned visits to forests by children in primary schools and the adopting by the schools of a local forest so that in that way our children may learn the value of our programme and become interested in trees.
Deputy Esmonde mentioned the natural regeneration of our forests. Many other countries, including Sweden, are swinging away from natural regeneration to what is called artificial regeneration, in other words, using plants raised in nurseries for regeneration purposes. This method enables the service to select the species which are considered most suitable for the area involved, and to use plants grown from selected and better strains of seed. In the long run I believe this produces a better result and is, therefore, in the last analysis, a better approach.
Deputy O.J. Flanagan mentioned the failure to plant trees along our coasts and cited the Bay of Biscay as a comparable area. I am advised that there are quite a number of factors involved here and, in particular, that the storms in the Bay of Biscay do not compare in intensity with the storms that occur along our western seaboard and, also, that the area adjoining the Bay of Biscay is flat and exposure, therefore, is more easily dealt with than on rising ground facing the sea. The area also benefits from the fact that the trees grown are indigenous and, therefore, particularly suited to the soil. At the same time, advances are being made all the time in regard to the utilisation of land along the sea for planting purposes and every possible effort will continue to be made to plant where possible, especially in areas where employment is scarce.
Again in reply to Deputy Desmond, there has been no change whatever in the policy in relation to fencing. The forestry service fences for its own protection and the practice has always been and still is to fence young plantations for their own protection. When they are matured this protection is no longer necessary and fencing is not renewed because, like others, the forestry service has no legal obligation to fence its land, nor would it be reasonable to expect it to undertake the cost throughout the country of fencing merely for the benefit of adjoining owners. It is the obligation of the owners themselves to do fencing so as to protect their own stock.
There were many other points raised but, as I said at the beginning, I am more concerned with general policy and will deal with the individual, minor items mentioned, some of them of a local character, by getting in touch direct with the Deputies concerned.
In my view we should rethink the whole question of Land Commission policy in the light of recent trends of the cost of land, in the light of the fact that we are likely to be in the EEC in a short number of years, and in the light of the experience we have had down the years of the operation of our various Acts. Where the western areas, from which I come myself, are concerned, I would prefer to see the abandonment of the effort to provide an economic holding for our farmers, for I believe this would have socially undesirable effects. I believe it would be much better to keep as many as possible on the land as part-time farmers and, therefore, that the drive should not be to provide an economic holding on the land but to provide a job which would enable the householder to become and to remain a part-time farmer on a small holding. Those who are not interested in being part-time farmers and who instead wish to make their living in farming should be encouraged to do so. I should like to make that clear as well, so that if a young man says: "I am not interested in working in a forest or in a factory; I want to be a full-time farmer and nothing else," he should be encouraged to remain on the land but not encouraged to the point of being allowed to acquire a disproportionate amount of the land anywhere.
With regard to the eastern areas of the country, the price of land has now made the activities of the Land Commission impossible and, therefore, redundant. A special policy in respect of those areas will have to be worked out independent of the Land Commission and, therefore, independent of my responsibility and under some other aegis.
Then I come to the question raised as to whether the Department of Lands as such should be a separate ministry or should be amalagamated, as suggested in the Devlin Report, with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and the other question as to whether the forestry service should be reconstituted as a semi-State body. My view is that the forestry service as it is is extremely successful and that, if the Department of Lands were to be abolished and the amended functions of the Department put under the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, this should not include the Forestry Division. In those circumstances it would possibly be preferable to set up a commercial, semi-State body, say, on the lines of Bord na Móna, and that that body would be responsible not merely for the implementation of our forestry programme but also for all aspects of timber and all the allied industrial undertakings associated with the by-products of trees.
In the last analysis it is obvious that anything to do with the land should be under the control of one Minister. When all is said and done, the land is the most precious asset of this country and, in my opinion, it will remain the most precious asset for a long time to come.