Is the Minister in possession?
Committee on Finance. - Vote 53—Forestry (Resumed).
He rose to conclude last night.
He did not start talking, did he? Will you let me in for five minutes?
Yes, a brief intervention.
I have been reading the debate that took place on this Vote this year, and I have repeatedly asked Deputies of this House who have raised interesting controversies in the country on the subject of forestry to enlighten us as to their attitude on the dilemma of whether we are to choose trees or men for land. Nobody enjoys a battle more than I do, but I find it difficult, when one is attacked for being unforestry-minded, that when you turn upon your attackers to deal with them, they fade away, having told you that you are laying a trap for them, and that they will not speak now, but that they will speak some other day, that they will not speak here but will speak in some other place, and, if you are not very careful, that they will write a letter to the paper. But they never write the letter to the paper, they never speak, and they never answer the question.
I am still waiting for Deputy Dowdall or Deputy Peadar O'Loghlen to tell me if it is true that land which will grow trees to maturity is also capable of being reclaimed for the settlement of congests or landless men. Do Deputy Peadar O'Loghlen and Deputy Dowdall prefer to put trees on the land and leave the men on the road? If I am right in believing that that is the dilemma, I am in favour of putting men on the land. Is it not nearly time that Deputy O'Loghlen, Deputy Dowdall and The Standard would tell us——
The Standard is not responsible to this House.
——would tell the public what their view is on that problem, because, until we have settled that question, it seems to me extremely difficult to pursue the rest of the argument with these highly-intelligent, public-spirited and earnest men. I would be glad if the Minister, in winding-up the debate here to-day, would tell us whether it is true that his best advice, not only from the Department officials, but from such independent experts as he may have consulted, is to the effect that land capable of bringing forestry to maturity is also capable of reclamation for human beings and, if that is his best advice, what is his answer to that dilemma?
It cannot be too frequently repeated in public that almost any land in the world will grow trees, but any sane forestry policy must be based on the growing of trees to maturity, and it is not every land in the world that will grow trees to maturity. The environment and the quality of the land are important. If the environment is unsuitable, the trees will be stunted or twisted by the impact of heavy winds, either sea-gales or prevailing winds. If the land is of unsuitable quality, the trees will grow to a certain height and then, not having a suitable root foundation, will either die for want of plant nutrition or fall for want of root hold. Therefore, you have to get land the environment of which will permit the trees to grow and, secondly, you have to get land of a quality which will provide the essential nutrition to make the trees grow to perfection. These two desiderata, so far as I am aware, disqualify a great deal of vacant land in this country that looks as if it ought to carry forests but which, in fact, is quite incapable of doing so. I think most people interested in forestry in this country are alarmed at one somewhat short-sighted procedure of the Department. We seem in our forestry policy to think only of the next twenty years, with the result that almost all the plantings that are made are conifers and, apparently, conifers are planted because they grow quickly and there is a prospect of an economic return at a comparatively early date. That is a very desirable activity, but I do not believe that it is the only activity, or the most important activity, in which the Department should engage.
One great loss this country has experienced in the course of the last 60 years, since the passage of the Land Acts, is the destruction of its deciduous trees. I am a land leaguer, and all belonging to me were land leaguers, and I am delighted to see the landlords chased out of this country—well, perhaps, not chased out of this country, but I am delighted to see the landlord system destroyed. I am sorry the landlords were chased out; I wish they were left here and allowed to live in peace the same as their tenants; the country would be a great deal better off if they were. What I deplore is that, with the breaking up of the estates, and more especially the demesnes, the splendid deciduous trees which were a characteristic of our countryside were cut down by the tenants, and perhaps for a very understandable reason.
Anyone who has lived in the West of Ireland on a small farm knows that a tree is a luxury that one cannot afford on a small farm, because the herbage under the shadow of a large deciduous tree deteriorates. If you have 10,000 acres you can afford that deterioration under a spreading tree, but if you have to rear a family of nine or ten children on a holding of ten acres, you are as solicitous about the trespass of a tree as you are about the trespass of a hen, and you have to be very solicitous about both or you cannot live. Therefore the tenants very naturally chase their neighbours' hens off their land and cut down their own trees in order to extract from the soil the maximum production possible.
I remember my grandmother telling me that at one time a squirrel could travel from Ballaghaderreen to Ballyhaunis without putting a foot on the ground. Well, unless there was a balloon barrage put up there now, a squirrel could not do it, because there are no trees left. Ballaghaderreen means the town of the little oak wood. So far as I am aware, there is not an oak tree now within 50 miles of Ballaghaderreen. That change in the squirrel's accommodation has taken place since 1880. I remember substantial woods of beech and trees like that which did not disappear until the Great War of 1914-1918. That did finish trees in our part of the country. These woods were not vast forests; they were quite small woods, but they added immensely to the amenities of the neighbourhood and, in my judgment, they were a great national asset.
I suggest to the Minister that, in addition to the planting he is doing on a very large scale, he ought also consider planting deciduous trees. I fully appreciate the difficulties that confront him, and I offer this suggestion. In the case of the estates that he has acquired, after he has distributed the demesne lands he has left upon his hands the residence and gardens. These are very often difficult to dispose of and, in fact, in many cases they have been sold for a song to somebody, just in order to get them off the Department's hands and to get the estate wound up—a very proper procedure in all the circumstances. I suggest that instead of doing that, he might, where the house was unsaleable or perhaps too big for modern convenience, take down that house, sell the slates and stones and fittings and then use the site of the house and the garden for the planting of deciduous trees. You might have eight acres in the garden, and if you had an eight-acre wood of beech, or something of that kind, it would do something to restore our losses arising out of the destruction that has been done within the last 50 or 60 years.
I remember at a corner of the road on the way from Mount St. Benedict to Gorey there was a place called Beechgrove, not more than two acres in extent, and yet it was one of the loveliest woods one could wish to see. There was another place called Ballingarry, where there were about 40 acres of beech trees, a beautiful sight. Both are now gone, swept away in the last war. The Minister might easily replace modest plantings of that kind with the deciduous variety of trees. Deputy Allen probably remembers Beechgrove and Ballingarry Wood, and possibly he deplores, with me, the disappearance of them.
I am emphasising this matter of the small deciduous plantings because Deputies will remember that the Minister has frequently refused to acquire land on the ground that a holding was too small for economic planting. I agree that is a perfectly valid objection, if your objective is to raise an economic tract of conifer trees. What I ask the Minister to do is to take his deciduous programme out of that category altogether, and to say: "In addition to my economic plantings, I will carefully consider the retention from the Land Commission of gardens and such like places, and I will further favourably consider the acquisition of what would be uneconomic plots for conifer woods in order to plant them with deciduous trees. I must ask the Dáil to regard this as virtually a Grant-in-Aid, plantings for which I can promise no economic return within a reasonable time." It could be done as a social amenity, just as the Minister for Local Government and Public Health would provide a swimming pool, or a public path, or anything of that kind. I feel quite certain that if the Minister would proceed along these lines, such procedure would meet with cordial approval, and it would not involve a heavy expenditure.
Either here or somewhere else, the Minister emphasised that he was keeping a very close and careful watch on the cutting of trees. I may remind the House that any person cutting a tree must have a licence to do so, and one condition is that he must plant new trees to replace the one he cuts. Does the Minister know what that means? You get a licence to cut a tree, and you can cut and sell the tree. Then you plant perhaps four little saplings in the immediate vicinity, and you hurry home, whereupon the neighbour's goat cats the saplings, and that is the end of that—nothing more is heard of it. You comply with the law and the goat cats the saplings. The trees are gone, and you hear no more about it.
That procedure is foolish. Let me assure the Minister that regulations with regard to protection, in so far as they are designed to protect deciduous trees in rural Ireland, are quite ineffective. It is not very easy to devise any plan which would secure the survival of the substitute trees that are planted. The Minister should not lay the soothing notion to his soul that these substitute plantings are making up the gaps. They are not; they are feeding the goats, and that is all they have been doing and will do in the future unless some definite step is taken.
There is another matter to which I have directed the attention of the Minister on more than one occasion. He has been offered, notably in County Wexford, stretches of land suitable for planting, but he has found on investigating the title that some obscure point about commonage obtained over the land, and therefore there was a difficulty in getting clear possession. The matter was further complicated by the fact that no legal record of commonage could be found in this country. It was a usual appurtenance of land in Great Britain, a form of title well recognised; but there is no record of the existence of such title in this country. Nevertheless, you are confronted with a well-established practice of commonage on the land, and the difficulty, therefore, is not to take the appropriate proceedings, but to know what are the appropriate proceedings to take.
In face of that situation I understand the Minister has simply sat back, said he does not know what to do, and the simplest thing to do is not to take the land. I put it to him that that is not a correct procedure. The correct procedure is to take the land, because everybody wants him to take it except, perhaps, a couple of sore-heads who are prepared to block any scheme. I suggest you should assess compensation, and put the compensation in court, and say to the interested parties: "Come in and get your money; do not be passing the buck. I mean to clear up this. I had nothing to do with the creation of your title, and I know nothing about it, but I am prepared to put down on the nail cash to compensate all possible claims to this land." If those who claim rights of commonage over the land cannot agree as to their respective claims, that is their funeral. The money would be in court, and it would be up to them to go into court and settle their dispute and take whatever proportion the court would declare to be a fair division.
What is to prevent the Minister doing that? I understand that if he did it he would acquire great areas of land which would greatly assist him in the course he has to pursue. I suggest that it is a fair and reasonable thing, and unless he pursues that course these areas of land will never come into the possession of the Forestry Department. I understand it is the wish of those on the land and everybody else that they should be planted. It would be of immense benefit to the country and to the residents in and around that neighbourhood as well.
I should like, first of all, to reply to a question put to me by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, which, in the course of my statement on the Land Commission Vote, I forgot to refer to. I hope I have the permission of the House in so doing. The question was with reference to the position of persons interested in hunting in counties where Land Commission operations are going on and hunting is indulged in. I suggest to the Deputy that the persons interested should get in touch with the Land Commission directly in cases where schemes are being carried out. I think that would be the simplest way. The Land Commission, of course, have no desire to interfere with hunting. If their object can be achieved without interfering with the carrying out of the schemes, the Land Commission have no intention of interfering with hunting amenities.
We may take it, then, that the Land Commission will be glad to receive representations from interested hunts?
Yes, where land operations are being carried out. A great deal has been said and written about afforestation in this country and, if I were to attempt to deal with all the points raised from time to time, the time at my disposal would be quite inadequate. Commissions have sat upon the question and investigations have been carried out in this country, but I think that the experience of the Forestry Branch goes to show that a great many of the assumptions that were made by writers and investigators on the possibilities of afforestation in this country were greatly at fault. It used to be said that there were millions of acres available, and so on. It was assumed that all that was necessary was to compute the total area of waste land, bog and mountain and calculate that all that could be devoted to afforestation.
It could not have been the Minister who made that assumption in the good old days of yore?
I have not made it at any rate.
It has a familiar sound, sure enough.
If we take the more modern assumption, that our aim should be to endeavour to secure that our entire requirements of timber will be produced from home sources in perpetuity, the estimate given to me—it is the most expert available at the moment, the future may show some modification of it—is that in round figures it would require 600,000 acres of woods to do so, on the basis of our present timber consumption. It has to be borne in mind that although that acreage would produce the actual bulk or volume of timber it would not necessarily produce the species or types of timber that would be required for all the commercial and other purposes for which timber is needed. We have to depend very largely at the present time on the importation of soft woods from abroad, timber of slow, even growth, knot-free and easy to work. This can be obtained very easily from huge natural forests in countries like Russia and Scandinavia. In this country we have a considerable amount of inferior material to deal with. The large timber producing countries seldom bother to export this type of timber which, to them, is useless material, but in our computation of our resources, unfortunately, that type of material, quite unsuitable for commercial purposes, bulks very largely.
Then there is the difficulty of acquiring land. As the House knows, 300 acres is considered to be the minimum which can be planted economically. But the position is that two-thirds of the land of this country is in farms of 100 acres or less, and Deputies will realise that as time goes on it will become more and more difficult to acquire parcels of a reasonable size. The average, I think, would be only 100 acres and, although there was an improvement in the past year, a slight improvement, in the average size of the parcels acquired, in the future we shall have to depend, I fear, on land coming in in rather smaller parcels. That makes afforestation very difficult from the economic point of view.
Besides that, small owners are naturally reluctant to part with their lands. The prices which we can give them are not considered favourable. At the present time we have a total of 130,000 acres acquired, more than half of which has come into our possession in the last seven years. I might mention that that 65,000 acres represent 430 separate transactions, which have been pieced together to form 92 forests, scattered over the country. Over 50,000 acres of new ground have been planted; 22,000 acres of cleared woodlands have been replanted and 12,500 acres consist of former private woods and plantations transferred to State ownership.
Expressed as a percentage of the total area of the country, these areas are certainly small, but we have these difficulties with regard to the smallness of the parcels, the length of time it takes to bring them in, the complicated legal processes, and we then have the difficulty that we often find, that the rights of the Land Commission or the Forestry Branch to take over the lands and use them for afforestation purposes are contested. Deputy Dillon suggested that, in these cases, we ought to endeavour to frame some scheme of compensation. I am not quite clear as to what legal basis could be adopted in these cases. Clearly, we are the legal owners of the land, but, on grounds of public policy—up to the present, at any rate—my predecessors have not considered it desirable to secure possession in face of local opposition. As I indicated already on the Supplementary Estimate, there must be limits, of course, to the losses which can be imposed on the State—losses in the amount of land which may be acquired and cannot be utilised for this purpose, and also the loss of time.
The forestry branch is working on a very narrow basis. We really ought to have a reserve of at least three years' average planting, but, instead of that, we are in the position—owing to the difficulty of acquiring land—that we have not very much more than a single year's reserve. That means, instead of having reasonable latitude, the forestry branch is terribly restricted. They are working almost up to the limit of the land actually in hands, whereas, if they had proper reserves, if it had been possible to create such, they would have had some latitude. More time could be given to clearing up lands which require suitable preparation before being planted and more attention could be given to the areas which it is obviously more economical to concentrate upon. At the present time, in order to carry out the maximum programme, the branch is up "to the pin of its collar" and the overheads are naturally very high when the work is scattered over a large number of centres. If we had ample reserves of land in hand, or if land were coming in at the rate which we would like, the ideal, from the point of view of economic afforestation, would be to concentrate on the more suitable areas of land where planting has been carried on satisfactorily and where we have all around a large acreage of woodland.
Deputy Dillon is, of course, quite right in saying that land must be arable if it is to be used for commercial afforestation. It must be suitable for growing trees. Deputies speaking on these matters—particularly those from Western counties—seem to have the idea that, because some trees grow they are worth while from the commercial point of view. Even if land can grow reasonably good trees, that is no proof that you can go into an area and exploit it on a commercial scale. The advice we have got, and which has been frequently mentioned in the House by my predecessors, is that in the congested areas —in particular the Western areas— which have been carefully examined and surveyed with a view to utilising them where possible, the climatic conditions militate against the economic development of those areas for afforestation. There is the question of elevation above 100 feet: those areas are not generally suitable. Then there are the questions of wind exposure and suitable soil. The soil may not be aerated and of a sufficiently arable nature. These combined factors mean that we cannot—much as we would desire it—develop afforestation in some of the areas in the country where we know it would be of great benefit in giving employment.
There are, of course, large areas of rough hill grazing available, and in some of the eastern and southern counties there are considerable tracts of land which, although belonging to large numbers of individual owners, can, if acquired, be grouped in small numbers of units and developed economically. There are also very many estates where a considerable area is under woodland. In these cases—even if nothing else were being done—obviously these estates or those portions under timber would have to be handed over to the Forestry Branch to be cared for. We have offers coming in, I am glad to say, and the inspectors are doing everything possible to endeavour to build up those reserves which are essential if the work is to be carried on satisfactorily and with the greatest economy. There are about 2,000 acres in eight different estates likely soon to come in, in the near future. I have given particulars in my statement of other areas—the greater proportion of them in the hands of the Land Commission—which we also expect will come in.
There seems to be a general desire in the House that afforestation operations should be proceeded with, and there seems to be general satisfaction that the work is in the best interests of the country. I find no disagreement on that point. Deputy Dillon seemed to strike a note of dissent. If he were here yesterday he would have heard many Deputies on his own side of the House expressing disappointment that, even in the present circumstances, more land could not be made available.
What dissent did I express?
The Deputy seemed to question the whole policy, on the assumption that, since arable land is necessary for commercial afforestation, it should be given to tenants for cultivation instead of being used for planting.
And what is the Minister's view? Would he put the people out on the roads and put in the trees?
Where the land is not likely to be required for the relief of congestion, and where there is no demand for it——
No demand for it?
——for the purpose of cultivation——
Where is that?
——and where there is no question of the Land Commission requiring it for its purposes, there seems to be no reason why the Forestry Branch should not acquire it for their purposes. If the question arises as to whether the Land Commission or the Forestry Branch should have first claim, as the greatest portion of the land is acquired by the Land Commission in the first instance, we may assume that it is only that land which they do not want for their purposes which will find its way into the Forestry Branch.
The amount made available for this service has not met with the approval of Deputy Norton. He thinks that the Department could do a great deal more. I have explained the difficulties which the Department is labouring under in building up reserves of land, the difficulty and trouble of getting land in at all, and the still greater difficulty of getting it in economic units and in suitable areas. In addition to that, there are various other difficulties. One of them is that, as the operations are extended and developed, one must, as I explained in my opening statement, continually increase the staff, as a great deal of attention has to be given to the existing woodland. It has to be thinned out and looked after, and a certain basic staff is necessary for this. That means that in each new area where you start operations you must have a new staff, and as time goes on the staff must be increased, unless you are working on the policy, which we are not, of confining the operations to a single area, and having all the work carried on from a single local headquarters.
I think that Deputy Norton and other Deputies, who are of opinion that more should be done, might look at the figures and they will see that in 1932-33, £62,000 was spent on forestry services, while during the present year £229,000 is being made available. We should all like to see more money being spent, but I must say that I am gratified in present circumstances that the Minister for Finance has been able to treat the forestry branch with reasonable generosity. The Government as a whole, like Deputies generally, are keenly interested in the service. Deputies may be interested to know how land has been coming in for acquisition. In 1932-33, 3,900 acres were acquired; in 1933-34, 6,900; in 1934-35, 18,156; in 1935-36, 15,500; in 1936-37, 9,700; in 1937-38, 13,700; in 1938-39, 7,500, and in 1939-40, 12,700. A great portion of these lands, however, are not capable of utilisation for one reason or another.
Deputy Mulcahy raised the question of our present supplies of timber. We have been in constant touch with the Department of Supplies. The position, as I have mentioned, is that building-timber is almost entirely composed of softwood produced by coniferous trees, and high-grade timber is usually specified in all building contracts. The amount of softwood timber growing in this country, and of a size suitable for conversion into building-timber, is not only very limited, but occurs in small scattered lots, uneconomic to work. These lots are also in great demand for production of packing materials, etc. Nevertheless, timber merchants who are buying softwood timber for other uses are selecting, wherever possible, suitable pieces from these lots for conversion into sizes suitable for building purposes and disposing of them to others in the building-timber trade. The Department converts timber in a small way only, but does, when suitable material is available and the demand arises, supply small lots of building timber to local users from its mill at Dundrum. The Department is continuing to place on the market all the mature softwood timber it possesses, and has not prohibited any private grower from selling or felling such timber. Any delay or interruption which has arisen is due to lack of proper knowledge of the provisions of the Forestry Act, which, in the future interests of forestry and of the timber trade itself, must be effectively applied, if future timber stocks are to be assured. Rigid control and rationing of existing stands of softwood timber could only be fairly and equitably applied if the stocks were sufficient to meet a large proportion of all softwood requirements. If the small stocks which do exist were to be specially reserved for building purposes, other important trades would suffer, especially the packing box trade, which has always, even before this emergency, relied upon home-grown softwoods and which is having great difficulty in getting its full supply. This trade, as Deputies know, is very important from the point of view of our agricultural exports. I am advised also that we have large quantities of imported building-timber.
With regard to the complaint that the Department has been slow to grant permits for felling timber which is fully matured, I should like if Deputies could bring examples of that to my notice. I am advised that in no case has the Department refused permits for felling matured timber, but the Department has to carry out the provisions of the Forestry Act, and if we were not careful in the present emergency we should soon find that the country would be completely denuded of timber.
Of Scots pine or red deal, the estimated present growing stocks in Éire amount to 2,000,000 cubic feet of merchantable timber and 19,000,000 cubic feet of inferior merchantable timber, a total of 21,000,000 cubic feet. The annual imports are 13,000,000 cubic feet. In the case of Norway spruce or white deal, present growing stocks in Éire are estimated as 750,000 cubic feet of merchantable timber, and 3,000,000 cubic feet of inferior merchantable timber, a total of 3,750,000 cubic feet. Annual imports in this case amount to 13,854,000 cubic feet, so that in the case of red deal and white deal our total annual imports amount to practically 27,000,000 cubic feet. As regards other classes of timber, the present growing stocks in Éire are estimated as follows: Larch, merchantable, 5,000,000 cubic feet; ditto, inferior merchantable, 12,000,000 cubic feet, a total of 17,000,000 cubic feet; other conifers, merchantable, 1,500,000 cubic feet; ditto, inferior merchantable, 2,000,000 cubic feet, a total of 3,500,000 cubic feet. The totals for all softwoods of merchantable quality are 9,250,000 cubic feet, and of inferior merchantable quality, 36,000,000 cubic feet; a combined total of 45,250,000 cubic feet. In the present emergency these stocks must be conserved, because, as I have explained, the necessities of our export industries have to be met. Then we have other industries such as the railways, which are dependent upon home supplies of timber, as they have been in the past.
As regards Deputy Mulcahy's complaint that the Forestry Department refuses to grant licences to fell mature timber, the Forestry Department is not refusing such licences. It is doing everything possible to deal speedily with felling notices. It is not putting difficulties of any sort in the way of parties requiring licences to fell timber, but it is insisting on replanting conditions in suitable cases where large quantities are to be cut. I think in all cases where inspections are carried out, the owners will find that all the difficulties and all the circumstances of individual cases will be taken into consideration by the inspectors before replanting conditions are laid down. Deputy Mulcahy seems to be under the impression that a great deal more is being asked than is necessary. He talks of the replanting, and says that the rule which required the replanting of three trees for every one cut has now been altered to ten trees for every one cut. The position is that a mature stand of timber at the time of cutting may have anywhere from 100 to 150 trees per statute acre. To replant an acre of felled woodland would require 2,000 pines, 1,700 spruce, or 1,200 larch according to the planting distances appropriate to those species. The proportion of young trees to be planted in relation to those cut may vary from eight-to-one to twenty-to-one. The reason for that, as I explained in my opening statement, which the Deputy has not apparently read, is that as the trees grow they have to be thinned out, and with that in view, this seemingly large proportion has to be replanted where felling takes place.
May I ask the Minister a question arising out of what he has just stated? I have here a letter from a man who applied for a permit to cut three acres of timber which is suitable only for pit wood. The wood was planted over fifty years ago. The man gave a guarantee that he was prepared to replant over the whole area. Although this timber was planted over fifty years ago and is only suitable for pit wood, he was refused a permit. In view of the fact that he was prepared to replant, it seems to me that this is a case in which he should not have been refused a permit. The refusal in this case does not fit in with what the Minister has just stated.
As I have said, the inspectors take all circumstances into consideration. They must have regard to the general policy and the legislation passed by this House which has made replanting a condition.
Mr. Morrissey
This man gave a guarantee that he was prepared to replant.
If the Deputy will let me have the name I will look into the matter.
Mr. Morrissey
I shall pass the letter on to the Minister.
I just want to explain that, while I think I am justified in saying that the inspectors try to meet individual owners, at the same time they have a duty to perform. They have to carry out the policy of safeguarding the timber supplies of the country. Deputy Everett inquired about the wages paid to forestry labourers and complained that the wages were not up to the standard of agricultural wages. He also said that forestry workers had not a full week's work guaranteed to them like agricultural workers. As in the case of the Land Commission labourers to which I referred yesterday, the position of forestry labourers is linked up with that of all workers in Government employment, and it is not a matter for my decision, or for the decision of my Department, as to what the remuneration of Government employees in this and in analogous classes will be. It is, however, not correct to say that forestry labourers are paid less than agricultural workers, or that their conditions are less attractive. Many people hold that the opposite is the case. I am afraid the Deputy has exaggerated the complaint about broken time. I can assure him that everything possible is done to deal sympathetically with the labourers in bad weather.
The sub-head dealing with subsidies to private planters makes provision for a grant of £4 per acre if they plant five acres or more, but advantage has not been taken of this scheme, so that the provision is rather limited having regard to the size of the Vote. If Deputies have particular cases in mind, they may be able to get owners to take advantage of this. Deputy McMenamin asked whether care was taken of lands that are let for shooting, and said that only a proportion of the birds on the shoots are destroyed. He also inquired about the duties of the deer and vermin trapper. Shooting lettings are usually made for periods of a few years, running concurrently, to the same persons, and they can be depended on not to exterminate the game from any area. In fact, it is known that very great care is taken. The deer and vermin trapper is employed within the State forests in destroying deer and vermin whose presence is injurious to the growing timber. The total area of the Cong estate acquired was 3,505 acres, consisting of 1,476 acres of woodland, 460 acres of scrub, 1,215 acres of bare land, and 352 acres of unplantable land. Although the total area is very large—3,505 acres—there is really only an area of 400 acres under matured timber.
As regards the dropping of Arbor Day, the Forestry Branch are satisfied that the scheme has served its purpose, for the moment at any rate. The schools seem to have taken advantage of it to the greatest extent possible, and to have utilised all the land that could profitably be used for this purpose. The figure of £2,400 only represents sales from the saw mills to the outside public, and does not include the value of a considerable amount of fencing and other materials supplied to our own forests. These saw mills were taken over with the estates in Dundrum and Cong.
I agree with Deputy Linehan that there is probably a great deal of indiscriminate cutting of trees going on. The Deputy stated that very nice avenues of trees along the public roads are being felled, with great loss to the scenic beauty of the country. It has come under my notice that county surveyors, in certain counties, have taken steps to have trees cut down. The provisions of the Forestry Act apply, even in these cases, but by arrangement between the county councils and the Forestry Branch we ought to be able to secure that no loss, which is avoidable, is incurred to the community. We cannot very well prevent the cutting of one or two trees here and there where it is considered necessary. As regards the public in general, the Guards have a very heavy task thrown upon them at present to ensure that the provisions of the Act, as regards felling notices, are carried out. I would ask Deputies, and the public generally, to co-operate with the Guards and, if they know that felling is going on illegally, to bring it under the notice of the Guards. If, for special reasons of safety, or for the provision of firewood, or for any other reason, Deputies consider felling permits should be granted, then why do not people obey the law and ask for a permit? As I have already explained, unless there are very good and sound reasons for preventing it, or applying the replanting provisions, the felling will be permitted, but I think what we should not countenance is that persons, no matter what the excuse may be, and no matter what their circumstances are, should go about indiscriminately felling, particularly at the present time.
In conclusion, there is another matter, and that is the question of forest fires. I referred in my opening statement to the necessity for carrying out the provisions of the Forestry Act very strictly, particularly while the present emergency lasts. We intend to do that, and to prosecute in every case that comes under our notice. There is also the question of fires. During the year 1939-40 a total of 49 fires was noted on or in the vicinity of State forest lands. Of these, 31 were extinguished before any damage was done to the plantations, but the remaining 17 caused damage to the estimated value of about £12,600. In some of these cases the fires are suspected to have been caused maliciously or through the carelessness of pedestrians, picnicing parties, etc., but in the great majority of cases they are caused by the action of neighbouring landowners setting fire to heather or gorse on mountain lands, and either neglecting entirely to make provision to control the extent and direction of the fires or finding themselves, by reason of a high wind or other cause, unable to do so. It is an offence under Section 13 of the Forestry Act of 1928 to set fire to any shrubs growing within one mile of a plantation without giving seven days prior notice both to the local Gárdaí and to the owner of the plantation. The Department is always prepared to co-operate with adjoining land owners who wish to improve their grazing by burning gorse, heather or bracken and who give the requisite notice, but in view of the extensive damage caused by these mountain burnings in the past, I desire to give the fullest notice that the Department will prosecute, in every case in which evidence is available, those persons who contravene the provisions of this section of the Act, whether in the neighbourhood of State or private plantations.
Vote put and agreed to.