When speaking last night, the Minister gave us a pretty extensive survey of the forestry situation as a whole but I cannot detect in his speech any change in the policy which has been in existence over the years. It seems to me that the be-all and end-all of forestry policy and administration is State planting and concentration as far as possible on the nurseries in the one area. The same appears to apply to acquired land. There has always been a theory within the Forestry Division that they should not acquire any land, unless they can get it alongside an existing forestry station. For that reason, they have adhered to a stereo-typed policy over the years.
I am not criticising that from a State point of view. As far as State afforestation goes, they seem to be following in the steps of their predecessors. The active drive for the figures I have here before me appears to have commenced in 1948. In 1947 to 1950, there was a big rise in State afforestation which increased gradually as time went on. The State at the present moment owns approximately 450,000 acres of land and probably a little more than that. It is a sizeable amount of the limited acreage of the entire country. The aim and object is to plant 25,000 acres a year. I have no personal objection to that but I want to stress early on in my speech that of the total vast sum being expended on forestry of £2,524,000, and that is allowing for the appropriations in aid of £720,000, only £25,000 is being expended on private afforestation.
I have here some very interesting figures relating to the forestry situation in Europe. The same applies to forestry as applies to everything else in Europe to-day, that you must try to establish an overall communal policy because if you do not, you will not get anywhere. That has been one of the greatest difficulties in agriculture, that there has not been a communal policy, that there is a different policy on each side of the fence which has led to doubt, difficulty and frustration.
The same applies to forestry. In forestry, there is the greatest potential for economic development, not only in this country but throughout the entire continent. Statistics available show that at present there are very large imports of both types of timber in Europe and the projections I have are produced by the OECD, the FAO of the United Nations, and the Council of Europe, indicating that there will be an increasing demand for timber over the years, imports of which by 1970 will approximate to the enormous sum of £800 million. That seems to me to open up an avenue of economic development in Ireland which we would be well advised to follow as well as we can.
I do not know if the Minister is aware of the actual import and export figures which have been prepared by the experts in Europe but if he is not, I shall be very happy to give him the copies I have at my disposal. Unfortunately, they are in metric tons and the prices are in dollars but it is easy to translate them into our own rates. Practically all the countries of Europe are importers of timber. With the extraordinary economic advance which is taking place under the European Economic Community and perhaps with the affiliation thereto of other countries to which its economic advantages will extend, the demand for timber will increase.
Therefore, the 25,000 acres of timber for afforestation, which is the absolute maximum the Minister will achieve as a result of the difficulties in procuring the land to plant and under the existing system, will not anything like meet the requirements. It will not meet the domestic demand, nor will it leave us in the position to expand this important branch of our economy and possibly to export. Furthermore, I want to draw the Minister's attention to this, that in the structural alterations that have taken place in all the countries in connection with agriculture—in practically all other countries—forestry is embraced in the Ministry of Agriculture— attempts are being made to deal with the political and economic situation that is developing within agriculture; people are leaving the land on account of mechanisation and are being replaced and retained on the land by forestry.
I have read very carefully the Minister's speech, of which he was good enough to give me a copy. I find there is a growing amount of co-operation between the Departments concerned which might to a certain extent co-relate the matters about which I have been talking. The only reference in the Minister's speech is to the inter-departmental conference which suggests some attempt to relate the existing size of farms and forestry. The policy of the Forestry Division has always been only to buy land where they have big tracts of land already, and further than that, to establish nurseries only in big centres where they feel they can increase these nurseries; in other words, their policy has been to centralise. It seems to me that that policy is the direct opposite to the policy of the other countries.
In Turkey and Greece, which are considered the underdeveloped countries of Europe, in the entire lay-out of the developing countries, an endeavour is being made absolutely to co-relate the two factors, agriculture and forestry. I think it is a mistaken policy to have large tracts of land and to concentrate, as we have done heretofore, on having forestry land in the one big centre and having land only where there is a forestry centre. I do not see that there is any reason for a continuation of that policy.
It is not as it was 20 years ago when this scheme was laid down by the Forestry Division. There was little transport then, motor transport and so on, and lorries were not available to those concerned and they could only start centres here and there on small tracts of land. What we really want is plenty of afforestation in Ireland but the State is limited because it cannot get enough land and the reason the State is limited is that it will take tracts only where it can get them in existing forestry centres.
That policy should be altered. The Minister should take the bit in his teeth and say to the officials: "Your policy was all right some years ago, but we want a modern and up-to-date policy and the aim and object is to get as much land as possible." Further, their policy should be not only to get land for the State but to see that the land is planted and that we get timber for the country. That brings me back to my old favourite in this House, something I have advocated ever since I came into public life. I have never yet been convinced that private enterprise, properly encouraged and aided, will not make as good a job as, if not a better job than, State enterprise. For that reason, the Minister should seriously consider what I am saying, if he will accept that.
Remember, in this enormous Vote —it is for £2½ millions and with the grant-in-aid, it will reach nearly £3 millions—the sum of £25,000 for private afforestation is a negligible sum. The Minister may well say: "I have done all I can to encourage people to plant land". That may be, but something is definitely wrong when you have 450,000 acres—it is now probably nearer half a million acres— under the jurisdiction of the Department and the active planting is going on, while only the owners of something over 1,200 acres are looking for the actual grant. Alongside with the State enterprise, you are not getting the private enterprise which you could afford. The Minister could and should encourage people as much as possible to go in for private enterprise because timber is one of the things for which there is a market.
That brings me to another point which I cannot understand. The grant at the moment is £20 per acre, although I understand the Department are considering giving the grant for half an acre. Assuming that one has to plant an acre to get the grant of £20, there is some extraordinary rule within the Department that that grant is not payable to anybody who afforests land alongside a forestry centre. Is that, in effect, not forcing the issue? If I have land, or if anybody else has land, on which previously there has been timber and that timber has been sold and the soil is now fresh and ready for reafforestation, we cannot get the State benefit if we are near a forestry centre. That means, in effect, that the State is trying to freeze out the private individual. Where are you likely to get land to plant except scrubland or high land or bog land or something like that? The Minister stressed that we want good land. By good land is meant hard, dry land. Anybody who knows anything about timber knows that trees grow better on dry land, that dry type of land you get alongside the bigger estate. The State is trying to force out the private individual as against State afforestation.
If the Minister wants to make a good job of afforestation, he will want to remember that whether it is the State or a private individual planting the land, what we want is timber developed for the nation as a whole. The figures I can give the Minister with regard to potential imports will convince him that there is a considerable market for timber in Europe. I shall not give too many figures because I should not like to weary the House with them. As I have said, I shall be happy to hand over these figures to the Minister—they are figures officially collected by an international organisation—provided he will be good enough to return them when he has copied them.
In 1960, the Netherlands imported 1,359,000 metric tons of timber and the Netherlands is not a very big country. The Federal Republic of Germany imported 2,157,000 metric tons of timber. Those were imports of wood-shaped timber. The Federal Republic of Germany in the same year imported 3,231,000 metric tons of round timber and the Netherlands imported 630,000 metric tons of wood rounds. Those are just two examples I have taken. That timber is not imported from Scandinavia but from outside Europe, from other parts of the world.
It is one of the efforts in which we can really drive ahead. To bring it back again to the tie-up between the agricultural sector and the Forestry Division, there are of course many small tracts of land scattered here and there which the Forestry Division could acquire. It may be argued that the fencing of that land would be uneconomic. I am unaware of the fact that the Forestry Division are making money or are likely to make money for some years to come, but if the State goes on planting 25,000 acres a year, it must reach a stage at which it will be making money. We have two vital concerns in relation to forestry : one is the employment it will give and the second is the raw material it will provide for us.
I am very happy to note that the larger proportion of our planting has transferred to the West of Ireland because this is one place in Ireland which is entirely bereft of raw materials and which is faced with perhaps a greater problem than anywhere else, with the exception of counties like Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan. The West of Ireland is faced with a massive unemployment problem and a total lack of raw materials. Though there is nothing in the Minister's speech to indicate it, I think this planting is going on there because there has been departmental co-operation and that is the reason why we have been able to get the land and plant it and provide the employment which it is giving. That could be vastly extended. That is what every other country is doing but somehow the Forestry Division has a scheme laid down for it. Perhaps that is bureaucracy; all countries suffer from that, but perhaps we are inclined to suffer from it more. I would ask the Minister not to be a constitutional monarch and put into effect his own ideas. He is a westerner himself and must know the problems which exist there.
The Minister mentioned forest fires and I am happy to support him, speaking on behalf of the major Opposition Party. As he said, the potential loss is £250,000 and it could become far more than that. However, I think the Minister was rather unfair in laying the blame for forest fires. My experience is that the people who start forest fires are not the local farmers. They have enough savoir faire to put the fire in a place where it will not destroy anything. The people who do it are the tourists. Instruction is necessary on that point. It may be necessary to indicate to Bord Fáilte, who are largely concerned with tourism, that these are the people responsible for the majority of fires. It is the picnickers. You get a very dry day, particularly in the autumn. That is the kind of thing that starts forest fires. The Minister said the farmers burning gorse were responsible for it and that may be so. I think the notices should be put up, as they are in most places, cautioning people against that.
The Minister also mentioned the direct sale of arable land and indicated that Deputies should not press for particular cases. There, again, the Minister is the representative of the people. He comes from a rural constituency, as I do. There are many instances where the possession by the Forestry Division of some small portion of arable land may be desirable and it may be desirable that they hold on to that land; but there are many instances where the Forestry Division may require 50 or 60 acres of land and there may be three or four acres over, which could be disposed of to a local holder.
I cannot see why we should go through all the ritual of the Forestry Division having to hand the land back to the Land Commission and the Land Commission having to send out inspectors to find out if there are any smallholders for the land. If the Land Commission permitted the inspector on the spot to decide whether the land be taken or not, it would be all right, but he is not allowed to do that. He has to send it back to the Land Commission. It has to go back again to a senior officer; it goes on to a file and maybe six months pass before a decision is taken. As I know the position, the Forestry Division buy land direct for money. The Land Commission operate a different system ; they give land bonds. Surely it is possible, in the particular instances concerned, to devise some method? Every case is different. We cannot work the division of land by the book. It should be possible for the Minister to have the facts placed before him and to give a decision whether a farmer would benefit by ten or 12 acres, without going through all this extraordinary ritual, which may take three or four months.
Think of all the money concerned, of all the filing, of all the officers concerned. I know from experience. I have the honour to represent a county in which there is a lot of variation in the land. We have forestry land and alongside it, we may have arable land or bog land. We have suffered all the frustrations of that particular type of, shall we say, mild bureaucracy one has to endure here. I am not charging the officials now. The officials are in offices. They are looking at the thing from the paper angle. What may be perfectly all right on paper is not all right in rural Ireland. Particular conditions exist in rural Ireland which determine whether they should do this or that. I do not see why we should have this endless delay in settling such matters.
There is one other matter I want to refer to with regard to estate sales. The Forestry Division deals in thousands of acres. When you deal in thousands of acres and when you have State funds at your back, you get rather high-falutin ideas about matters generally. We are not a wealthy country. We have quite a lot of timber merchants here who want to buy timber. The Forestry Division have a system which they have to operate, a system by which the thing is put up for tender. If they do not do that, some Deputy may come in and query their actions in Dáil Éireann. In the main, they put up huge lots of timber and this eliminates the small dealer altogether. It should be possible, through the representations of a Deputy or other representative, for a small dealer who wants to buy a small amount of timber to be allowed to tender. After a time, these small dealers will get a reasonable idea of what wood is worth and will tender reasonable amounts.
I have had repeated complaints from small dealers who are unable to get wood. The officials' argument is : we must sell timber and make as much out of it as we can. That may be all right, but, at the same time, Dáil Éireann are asked to vote £2½ million for the purposes of afforestation. That £2½ million is paid literally by everybody in the State. Therefore, everybody is entitled to get some benefit out of forestry. I do not think the Forestry Division would be losing any money if they laid aside a small amount of timber every year to meet the requirements of the smaller wood merchant.
Another thing about Irish timber is that it has unjustifiably got a bad name for not being as good as foreign timber. I want to say here and now that if Irish timber is properly treated, it is as good as, if not better than, any timber that comes from Scandinavia, the home of timber. In Scandinavia, and in fact in all the continental countries where I have had the opportunity of visiting forestry centres, the first thing they do, when they fell a tree, is to remove the bark. That is done automatically. When you remove the bark, the tree starts to season. In Ireland, a merchant buys a certain amount of timber. The timber is felled and taken absolutely fresh. Very often, it is cut into saw parts straight away without any chance of seasoning whatsoever.
I notice in the Minister's speech— this is only a suggestion; it may not be possible—he said that the timber, in the main, unless by special order, was not felled by the Department concerned. Would it be wise—it would also give employment within the State forests—if the Forestry Division had a system whereby they felled their own timber? If they did so, they would be in a position to remove the bark and be able also to regulate the use of that timber. Our timber grows faster than in the majority of other countries on account of our milder climate. Therefore, it has, perhaps, a higher content of sap. If this scheme were adopted, whereby the timber was felled by the Department, stripped beforehand and kept for a certain period, Irish timber would then get the name to which it is entitled, in my opinion: that of being as good as any other timber in any part of the world.
If we are all here next year and debating this Forestry Estimate, I should like to hear from the Minister if he has made any more advances in the matter of private planting. I would suggest certain ways of doing this. I see from the Minister's address yesterday that certain lectures have been given in regard to afforestation generally. I do not think that the average Irish person knows anything about timber or is particularly interested in it. On many farms, there is no timber and it is very hard to persuade a farmer to start to plant timber and so close up a plot of land from which he may not have any benefit for many years. The answer from the Government of the day usually is that they give grants and facilitate people in every way. Many other things could be done and there are many encouragements that could be given. If a farmer decides to plant two acres of land, ipso facto, he closes up that land for 25 years. His first return from it will be thinnings. Meantime, he has to pay rates. On the half-million acres or so of State forests, no rates are paid. Why should the private person pay rates on land that is giving no production?
Regarding bigger landowners who own quite a lot of timber, they are not only paying rates but income tax also. If we want to bring Ireland up to the necessary afforestation level, I have endeavoured to show by the statistics I have quoted—I do not like quoting statistics extensively because I think they bore people—that in the difficult situation facing Europe on the land, there is one assured sale, that is, timber. The Minister should not be satisfied with the 25,000 acres a year planting rate.
Let me conclude by congratulating him on planting 25,000 acres and on getting as far as he has gone on the State side of forestry but he should not be content with that. He should try in every possible way, by instructing people and giving them all possible incentives, to increase timber production. If he does that, he will make a very useful contribution to the agricultural community. What I want, and what I am sure my colleagues on this side of the House want, and what I hope my colleagues on the other side of the House would wish, is to see the people retained on the land and the rural way of life defended and expanded. We can only do that by maintaining auxiliary employment in and around the farm. The greatest opportunity for that is afforestation. But the State will not do it alone ; the State must give the private person the incentive to be interested in timber and to raise timber. If the Minister succeeds in doing that, he will have made some contribution to rural life and when he returns next year, not only will he be reigning as constitutional monarch in the Forestry Section but he will be really doing his job and getting down to brass tacks.
