asked the Minister for Tourism, Fisheries and Forestry in view of the failure to achieve the annual planting targets set down by the Government the action he proposes to take to remedy the situation.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Forestry Planting Targets.
40.
The Government's plan Building on Reality set the planting programme for the three years 1985 to 1987 at an annual average rate of some 7,500 hectares.
In 1985, 7,052 hectares were planted, comprising 6,288 hectares of State planting and 764 hectares planted by the private sector. It is estimated that planting in 1986 will exceed 9,200 hectares, comprising some 6,960 ha. by the State and 2,300 by the private sector, while in 1987 it is expected that total planting will reach 10,000 hectares. That is real progress.
The Minister of State will be aware that the State planting programme is now in decline. He is trying to confuse the issue by including in the figures for planting private plantation, which is a separate issue. Have the Government any plans to increase State planting in view of the fact that they have only half reached their target for this year? The sawmills are working at half capacity; the industry is in total disarray; and there seems to be no indication from the Minister that he is really serious about dealing with the crisis in the timber business.
The figures I have given indicate clearly that there is an increase in planting. It went from 7,000 in 1985 to 9,200 in 1986 and we hope to hit 10,000 by 1987. Surely that is progress. Added to that we hope to have a revision of the western package planting scheme where at the moment about £800 per hectare is being offered to plant trees. We submitted a number of proposals to the Commission in April 1986 to get that increase to over £1,000, as a matter of fact to £1,050 per hectare, in order to accommodate people who may not be enticed into the scheme at the moment. One would think from what Deputy Daly is saying that nothing was being done. A scheme to allow farmers to receive headage payments for a period of about 15 years provided that, if they planted some of their land, they would receive a headage payment on the stock attributable to that part of the land. The reason for that is to try to get them into forestry and so we hope to ensure a better livelihood for them.
The Minister is trying to confuse the issue by adding in the developments which are taking place under the EC western package. Two thousand of the hectares the Minister is talking about here——
The Deputy has taken two-thirds of the time for the question and if I do not try to curb him he will take the whole time.
This is a very serious issue.
I have to be fair to the various Deputies.
This is the situation, and to try to pretend that the Government are actually doing something——
I am not distorting the situation. The figures speak for themselves.