I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1947, for Salaries and Expenses in connection with Forestry (9 & 10 Geo. 5, c. 58, and No. 34 of 1928), including certain Grants-in-Aid.
This Supplementary Estimate is necessary in order to obtain the authority of the Dáil for additional expenditure on the felling and preparation for firewood of timber growing in State forests.
The cost of the operations will amount to approximately £12,000 and is chargeable to sub-head C (2) (Cultural Operations—Labour) of the Forestry Vote. Normal expenditure under that sub-head during the current financial year will probably exhaust the full Vote provision. Savings on other sub-heads will be insufficient to meet the additional expenditure contemplated.
Owing to national necessities the large sales of timber during the 1946-47 year from State forests were much bigger than those estimated for under the Appropriation-in-Aid sub-head. It is proposed, subject to the concurrence of the Dáil, to provide the additional sum now required for sub-head C (2), less £1,000 representing the estimated net savings on other sub-heads, by the utilisation of the moneys received over and above the Appropriations-in-Aid budgeted for earlier in the year. A Token Supplementary Estimate of £10 is accordingly submitted for approval.
The provision or regulation of fuel supplies is not the responsibility of my Department. The Forestry Vote normally includes provision for the felling and marketing of a certain amount of firewood either in the form of logs or blocks. Abnormal weather conditions since early last summer have so disrupted the fuel supplies that exceptional measures are necessary this year.
A survey has been made of the available stocks of firewood in the State forests and it is anticipated that about 40,000 tons of firewood logs can be put on the market immediately. The method of sale will vary with the circumstances of each neighbourhood. In most places a proportion will be sold in small lots to householders in the vicinity of the forests, whilst the remainder will be sold to fuel merchants supplying towns and villages nearby. In some cases stocks may be in excess of the local needs and it may be possible, in consultation with the Department of Industry and Commerce, to provide a certain amount for industrial use. The supply, however, is limited and it will not be possible for the forestry division to accept orders from every source, or to guarantee to any industry, no matter how important, a supply of firewood. Colossal inroads have been made in the past two years on the resources of the State forests for firewood and other purposes and the steady denudation of growing timber is a matter of grave concern to my Department. Many of the trees that had to be felled were of an age, species and type that are rare in this country and it is most regrettable from a forestry point of view that they had to be cut down.
In places where fuel is scarce it is hoped that private owners of firewood timber will make available as much firewood as possible. In that connection I should like to make it clear that apart from the Emergency Powers Order which, for military reasons, forbids the felling of roadside trees, there are still very definite restrictions on the felling of trees for any purpose, and that there is still a responsibility on my Department, and on the community as a whole, to ensure that trees required for shelter or amenity purposes, and immature trees generally, are not reckdessly or indiscriminately felled or otherwise destroyed.
Felling notices in regard to trees required for fuel receive and will continue to receive in the present situation urgent and sympathetic consideration. Where the number of trees concerned is not too large the notices are passed without question and notification is sent immediately to the local Gardaí so that felling need not wait on the full 21 days' period which, strictly speaking, the Forestry Act requires. Where the number of trees is large and it appears that replanting may be necessary, or where there are other special features requiring investigation, it may still be necessary to send a Preliminary Prohibition Order, but I can assure the House that all such cases will be dealt with as rapidly as possible. I think that the House will agree with me in expressing the hope that even in the existing circumstances there should be no ruthless or unnecessary cutting down of the timber stocks of the country, and that the utmost patience and discretion will be exercised with a view to preserving as far as possible trees which the country cannot afford to lose.