I am grateful to the House for the manner in which they have received this Estimate and, in the main, for the constructive approach of different Deputies to the problems confronting the Forestry Division. Some Deputies have mentioned the price offered by the Forestry Division for land acquired under their intake machine. Other Deputies, including the Leader of the Opposition, appear doubtful about the mechanics of this whole business. That is an indication that the Department must be careful about its costings. The raw material of the Department is the land it acquires for planting. The fact that we have been able, over the past few years, to reach the target we have set ourselves of 25,000 acres of planting per annum and that we have been able to acquire sufficient land for that purpose is, I think, the real answer to those critics of the prices we pay for land for forestry purposes.
Let me emphasise that 90 per cent, I think, of the land acquired for forestry is wasteland, useless for any other purpose. In many cases where the Forestry Division get blocks of perhaps 200 acres, only possibly 35 to 45 acres of that area is plantable. There may be a large peak of rock in the centre of it or a large area of marsh incapable of being drained or planted, with the result that although the price paid for that land varies from £5 to £7 per acre, actually if you relate the price to the plantable area, it will be very high for forestry purposes.
Let me reject immediately the suggestion by Deputy McLaughlin that the reason the Forestry Division are going ahead so rapidly west of the Shannon is that many people are leaving their land. That is not so. The fact remains that west of the Shannon there are in counties such as my own, and indeed in Leitrim, the county from which the Deputy hails, vast tracts of marginal or mountainous land suitable for forestry and nothing else. Many of these old commonages are now coming into the hands of the Land Commission simply because the common owners who had them were making very little or no use of them and from an agronomic or other point of view in regard to the economics of the user of these areas, it would be far better both for the individuals and the nation that these areas should be under timber.
There is a vast potential for further forestry development in the west. In county Mayo alone, I estimate a potential 100,000 acres still to come into the forestry machine. This is marginal, mountain land that would be better under forestry than any other form of user. From my own observation driving through county Leitrim, of which the Deputy spoke, a vast amount of land there appears to me suitable for nothing but forestry. Unfortunately, we are not getting offers or co-operation in that county to the extent we would like. It is difficult to get the people to part with their marginal land but I am satisfied that, above all the counties of Ireland possibly, the economic saving of that county, which is a very poor one, would be an intensification of forestry development there. The Deputy from that area who spoke—I am sure he is sincere in what he said—should endeavour to persuade more of these people to make their marginal land available to the Forestry Division for planting and in that way provide what would be permanent employment so badly needed in Leitrim and other such counties and generally in the congested areas.
Deputy O.J. Flanagan complained of the prices and some other Deputy in dealing with prices suggested that only one price should be offered. Generally, I think that is the practice of the Forestry Division, except where it comes to the notice of another official, apart from the man who inspected it, that something was overlooked and in such cases another offer is often made. On occasions, when dealing with very small units and where the legal costs involved are substantial in comparison with the purchase money, in order to get the title question straightened out, the Forestry Division are inclined to give the small man a higher price than they would normally pay in order to enable him to get over his difficulties in this respect. Generally, when an inspection is made by a qualified man, the price which in the opinion of the Forestry Division is a fair value is offered and there is no further bargaining.
I agree that it would be undesirable to have a performance going on between the Forestry Division and the individual owner such as sometimes goes on with a man selling a cow at a fair. It would lead to undesirable results if you had offers and counter-offers going on over a long time in such a way that an individual might feel that by holding out he would be able to squeeze another 10/- an acre from the Department and be able to say he succeeded in doing better than his neighbour with the same quality land.
Complaints have been made about the time lag between the inspection and the offer from the Department but I should like the House to understand that a few years ago when we set our sights on a target of 25,000 acres per year, we did not have the machinery or organisation to deal with such a programme. We are now carrying out the highest rate of planting per head of the population in the whole of western Europe and we have reached this stage in a very short time. You might describe it as a sudden jump forward and we have maintained this pace over the past four years. To maintain a rate of 25,000 acres per year, according to normal forestry practice in other countries—and indeed that is what we should have here—would require a reserve of 75,000 acres. You need that amount for efficient planting of 25,000 acres per year so as to have full economic user of your land force, machinery and so on.
We have not that plantable reserve and until we are in a position to build up such a reserve we shall have complaints on occasion about men being laid off from time to time in different areas. We cannot achieve stability with our labour force unless we achieve the plantable reserve to which I have referred.
Considering the vast expansion in our planting programme, we have done very well and we have tried to get our machine geared towards this steady national planting programme. That entailed more staff, more training of foresters in the Forestry School and it entailed stepping-up the organisation all around to cope with the new amount of work involved in maintaining this programme. To those who say that we should go faster, I would reply: if we are able to maintain this steady rate which we are now achieving, we are doing a very good job for the country. For the future, I shall be quite satisfied if we can continue at the steady rate of 25,000 acres per annum. In accordance with our national resources, it is a very high target and Deputies are already beginning to see that we are commencing to change the appearance of the countryside.
As we go ahead, it is becoming more and more difficult to acquire sufficient land to keep up a regular planting programme of 25,000 acres a year. The average unit in the intake machine is becoming smaller and smaller. It is like the situation on the Land Commission side where the cream is gone off the milk and all the big estates in the west have been taken over. The land that is easy of acquisition has been acquired, and consequently we anticipate, as has been the experience in other countries, that as forestry development goes ahead, the smaller the average size of the unit will be. Therefore, there will be more trouble, more inspections and more delays dealing with individual title investigations for these small units. Consequently, you have this slowing down of the process.
If there is on the administrative side any way by which we can speed up the machine, I shall be very happy to adopt it. Since I came into office, I have taken, as a matter of practice, a number of shortcuts in dealing with title difficulties, and the new procedure is relieving the bottleneck on that side pretty effectively. However, if I feel that in order to speed up the intake of commonages we should have another look at the law on the matter, I shall have no hesitation in coming to the House and asking for any additional powers it is suggested I require.
At all events, without labouring the matter, I feel very strongly, both from what I have seen abroad and from my experience here, that if we can continue with a consistent annual programme of planting 25,000 acres, we will be doing a very good job in our circumstances and in a comparatively short period will have made up for the great national lack of forestry development over the years.
I wish to refer to a number of points made by Deputy Dillon. He seems to be somewhat concerned about the cost of this whole programme. He seems to be under a misconception when he suggests that the £40 million investment in forestry to which I referred is costing £2 million a year to service. That is not so. That £40 million includes the interest on the capital since the programme began.
The Deputy need be under no misapprehension so far as the future of timber and timber products is concerned. From every indication, their future is both sound and assured. Even in the Scandinavian countries, there is a market to which we could export industrial pulp, if we had it to export. These countries are, in fact, importing industrial pulp for their industries. Every year new uses are being found for timber and timber derivatives as a raw material. Leaving aside the paper industry, the plastics industry and many other forms of industry are finding new uses for timber in one form or another. When one contemplates the educational development of the millions of illiterate people in the emergent African countries, there is bound to be a tremendous upsurge in the demand for timber for paper.
I would also like to correct Deputy Dillon's misconception so far as his visit to Canada some time ago is concerned. When we talk here about countries in which their forests are indigenous and have grown naturally over the generations, it is not generally appreciated that the rate of growth there is far and away behind ours. When comparing notes with Mr. Spooner, my opposite number in Canada, who was on a visit here a few years ago, I was astonished to learn that the natural forests there have a rate of growth approximately half ours here, because the ground is frozen for approximately six months and there is no growth.
I was also agreeably surprised to learn, when visiting forests in Norway and Sweden, that the rate of growth for indigenous timber there, such as Norwegian Pine, results in their reaching maturity in from 80 to 110 years. That maturity can be achieved here with Sitka Spruce and similar types in from 38 to 45 years. I have seen as large development in volume here in half the time it takes to develop such trees in their natural conditions. Therefore, even though our forests have been denuded down through the centuries, we have the tremendous advantage of the Irish climate, soil, sunshine and rain which give us a faster rate of growth and volume development. In that way, we are economically far better placed than the ordinary individual appreciates. People are inclined to believe that where trees are indigenous, timber production is more economical than in countries like this. In practically all these countries when it comes to reafforestation, they are more and more planting in the same way as we are here.
In some of these countries, a lot of forest is held in private ownership. It is a common practice for an individual to have 20 or 25 acres of arable land and to have 200 or 300 acres of natural forest. He regards that natural forest as a bank. He draws on it generally only in times of family crisis, when there is a death in the family, when his wife is ill, when he wants to buy a new tractor or make some other capital investment. When I was there, there was a national campaign to try to get farmers to cut down trees which were mature, from 80 to 100 years old. The reason they did not do it was that they would have to pay a tax on the proceeds and the idea of the farmers was to hand over their forests to their sons, not to cut down the trees, and thus to get out of paying the tax. Of course, farmers there are no more anxious to pay taxes they can avoid than they are here.
At all events, it can be said that even in countries where they formerly relied on natural regeneration, they are now assisting it and from a point of view of commercial development, they are planting in the same way as we do here. Even in areas where they clear fell except for leaving one, two, three or four trees for the purpose of natural regeneration, they practise regeneration also by manuring the ground. In Canada, too, when they are clearing out old forests, they are beginning to plant in the same way as we do here. In these countries, from an investment point of view, they have to wait for results at least twice as long as we have to wait here. Therefore, in the fullness of time, when out forests develop, we should, with our perfectly natural resources here, be in a position at least to compete on costings with many of these countries, notwithstanding their vaster areas and even though their forests had not been denuded down through the years as were ours.
Deputy Dillon seemed to think there was special antipathy by officials of my Department towards people coming in to see our forests. Let me admit candidly that one of our great national weaknesses is that we have no forestry tradition like they have in the countries to which I have referred, generally throughout the Continent and in Germany particularly. Consequently, until our people get the forestry tradition or, as Deputy Crinion or some other Deputy suggested, until our children are taught it, there is grave danger. I am satisfied that most of the damage that has occurred through forest fires here has been due more to ignorance than to any other factor and also because of the lack of the forestry tradition.
I would like Deputies to understand that the Forestry Division must be particularly careful about younger forests. Where the trees are small, there is competing vegetation and until the trees get big enough to close in and cut out the sunlight from this competing vegetation, there is grave danger of fire. That is the reason why Forestry Division officials have to be very careful about allowing the public to go into young forests where the competing vegetation is high. In a case like that, the dropping of a cigarette butt or a broken bottle might be the cause of serious fire damage.
Where we have mature forests, we have been in consultation with Bord Fáilte and are making a start to open up those forests for the benefit of tourists and the public generally, and as a local amenity. In this connection, we have made a start with the Gougane Barra forest and I would cordially invite Deputies who are free in the autumn, or the fall of the year, as the Americans call it, to go to that very beautiful forest which is now being opened up and a road being laid through it, and enjoy the wonderful contrasts as between the Japanese larch and the other conifers there. We have made a start there and as forestry development goes on, and as we have areas suitable for this purpose, it is our intention in conjunction with Bord Fáilte to make them available as a tourist attraction and as a local amenity.
I have no doubt that some of the forests with which I am familiar will be just as great an attraction for tourists and our own people as the Black Forest in Germany is at the moment. One of the reasons why our vast forestry development areas in this country are not better appreciated is that they are generally away from the main roads. I appreciate Deputy Browne being impressed by the route between Enniskillen and Belfast—I have travelled it myself—but vast areas of mountainous and regional land have been planted in this country in the past few years that are even already transforming hills and valleys but, generally speaking, they are not situated in very well-known areas, being away from the big arteries. We have areas of from 6,000 to 7,000 acres planted throughout the country and I have no doubt in a few years they will become well known as spots that will attract visitors from all parts of the land as well as tourists from abroad.
Deputy Tully suggested that timber coming from Irish plantations should be seasoned properly before going into building construction. I do not think anybody would disagree with that view. It is important to note, however, that the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards have laid down and published standards of moisture content for building timbers. These standards can be applied equally to local and imported timber. This question of imposing standards is, I understand from the trade generally, laid down by the architects or engineers in charge of particular jobs. It was bad business in earlier years that certain standards were not rigidly adhered to. I am sure, as Deputies have said, that our timber materials, properly handled and seasoned, are not only equal to but better than those coming in from abroad. It is solely a question of handling them properly, as was suggested by Deputy Tully, and I think now that, in the main, considering the standards laid down, this is being done.
He also raised the question of Mulroy Nursery in Donegal. Although it is closing down, I understand the position is that there will be work there until next March for the present labour force and the position can then be reexamined. I reiterate that it is the standard practice of my Department to try, where men become redundant, to have them re-employed on another forestry job, if there is one in the area, or within a reasonable distance of that area.
There was complaint by some Deputies that some workers have to travel too far to work. That is inevitable in some areas. The men have to travel considerable distances because the location is generally up on a mountain or in an isolated area, but due allowance is made for all that.
It is not as simple as Deputy Tully thinks to provide a five-day week. The position is not the same as it is where county council workers are concerned. They are engaged in the one area all the time, doing the same job. One of the difficulties about forestry workers is that, if we are to maintain our present output, we cannot have them working beyond a certain number of hours in the summer time; if we make any departure, we will be infringing certain provisions of the Conditions of Employment Act. If it were possible to work out a system under which we could get the same output, I should be very happy, but I cannot see how it could be done. If there is a way out of the difficulty, I and my Department will be very glad but, because of the nature of the work, certain special difficulties present themselves. While I and my Department would be glad to have another look at the matter, the answer to the proposition posed by Deputy Tully is certainly not apparent to me at the moment.
Deputy Tully also raised the question as to whether the wages tribunal for forestry workers would be set up in the immediate future. I can only repeat what I said here before. A number of wage adjustments have been successfully negotiated between my Department and the unions and the absence of a tribunal did not militate in any way against the workers. I said, too, on a former occasion that the whole question of industrial disputes is now under consideration by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and others and it would be premature for us to go ahead with one type of tribunal until a conclusion is reached in the wider field of management and worker relations generally. It would be wise, I think, for us to hasten slowly. When all this matter has been fully considered, some tribunal, not alone for forestry workers but for all categories of workers, will emerge. Meanwhile, no one has suffered because of the absence of such a tribunal. Adjustments have been successfully negotiated to the satisfaction, I think, of all those concerned.
As I have said on a number of occasions, forestry is not the answer to the problem of Bord na Móna cutaway bog. Deputy O.J. Flanagan and others raised this question. A couple of years ago, I and my officials took this matter up with Bord na Móna. We spent a day on the bogs. Their requirements are pretty substantial and it will be some years before cutaway bogs will be available for forestry. Even then, they will not prove to be the solution to absorbing Bord na Móna workers in the off season because reclamation and preparation work have to be done at a certain time and these operations will not fit in with Bord na Móna operations. It is, too, the aim of the Forestry Division to build up a permanent labour force. We find that such a force pays the Department. The more experienced the men become, the more productive they are. Our aim is not to lay off men or take men on casually but to build up a permanent labour force maintained full time so far as possible. Absorbing men laid off by Bord na Móna in forestry work is not a practicable proposition. Neither is it likely to become one in the foreseeable future.
A question was raised about PAYE. It was news to me that there was a different practice where forestry workers are concerned as compared with other State employees. On inquiry, I found that there is no variation in the practice. Deductions are made on a weekly basis. Where deductions do not commence until near the end of the financial year, involving heavy financial commitments for the workers concerned, that is the exception rather than the rule. It arises because workers have failed to send in returns or have sent in incomplete returns. Generally speaking, the deductions are made weekly and it is only in the odd case this complaint could possibly arise.
Studies by the research section of the Forestry Division are going ahead to ascertain the annual increment of trees of various species here under our conditions and until these studies are completed, it will not be possible to give dependable forecasts of the produce available in future years. It can be taken for granted that a steady increase in produce will be available but the whole purpose of this study is to try to do what has been suggested here, that is, to give a forecast to the trade and to the country as to what will be available over a given period or at any given time in the future. We hope that when this study is completed, we will at least be able to make a reasonable rough and ready forecast to tell those concerned what we expect to be coming on the market in future years.
It is impossible for us without carrying out this special research study now to make any proper prognostication. We are forced to rely for the present time at all events on yield tables published by the British Forestry Commission and they are not truly applicable to our conditions and cannot be relied on because, as I have pointed out already, conditions vary between the different countries and even between this country and England with different species. It is our experience that conditions vary and that we cannot rely on what is laid down by them for growth estimates of different species in our conditions here. At all events, Deputies can rest assured that this matter is in hand and that we hope, with the help of our research backroom boys, to be able to give reasonable forecasts as to the growth potentiality of our forests and that in time should be of use to people in the business in planning their own developments on the industrial side.
Deputy Geoghegan referred to what he calls a haven for foxes being provided by the Forestry Division of my Department. I have got some complaints under this heading in recent times. I thought that where there is an active regional game council they would naturally concentrate on forests in their area to eliminate the fox menace. I know that in all counties where regional game councils are active, they have put a price on the head, or rather, on the tail of the fox when it is delivered to them but I am surprised that they have not attacked the fox at his source. Many of these game councils are using the forests as sanctuaries for breeding and for birds and I will have the Deputy's complaint—evidently there is some special difficulty in County Galway—brought to the notice of my foresters who are dealing with this work in the field.
It is natural, I suppose, that the foxes, with their traditional skill at evading capture, should make use of the dense undergrowth and cover now available to them in some of our forests and in so far as the Forestry Division can help in eliminating this menace I can assure the House that they will do their utmost to do so.
Fundamentally, it is a matter for the game councils where they are active and in so far as I can I shall bring this problem to the notice of game councils in the various areas for their attention.
Deputy Geoghegan also referred to the danger of forest fires and suggested that the fire chiefs should be made aware of lakes or rivers adjacent to forests so that they would know where to find water when called to forest fires. I am glad to inform the House that the question of the provision of reservoirs for fire fighting is at present under consideration, that we had discussions between the chief fire officers and representatives of the Forestry Division and of the Department of Local Government on this subject. We have been considering this matter and I trust we will be able to work out a national scheme applicable generally throughout the country and have the fullest co-operation between my Department, the Department of Local Government and the fire authorities of the various local authorities.
Let me say again that forest fires almost invariably occur through ignorance on the part of local farmers. Not so many of them, except around centres of urban population, have occurred accidentally as a result of carelessness on the part of trippers. The biggest danger we find is that farmers for their own purposes start to burn whins or heather on their land or mountain near forest areas. They are supposed under law—and indeed it is an offence for them to fail to do so—to notify the Garda authorities and notify us but in many cases they do not do this and they are careless in lighting fires close to forests. Some of the most disastrous fires from the point of view of the Forestry Division that have occurred, have started in this way—fires that have been started deliberately either to clean out old gorse or heather or fires started on bogs that have gone out of control and those concerned not being able to do anything about them and not realising the danger of the spread of fire in areas close to forests. These have been the cause of our greatest loss.
We have made appeals on various occasions to these people to be more careful. I want to warn them now that the time has come when we have to adopt a tougher attitude on this issue. Sufficient warning has been given to all and sundry on this question and, in future, where they are brought before the courts, the Forestry Division will press for the application of the full rigour of the law to them. The State forests are the people's property We must instil a forestry tradition into our people and, if necessary, we will have to do it the hard way. The time has come, in my view, when we can no longer afford to take an easy view of the ignorance or carelessness of people who, irrespective of the consequences, light fires that may spread to young forests.
I agree with all those Deputies who have referred to the slowness of the progress in the private planting sector. While I could say, if I were one of those given to statistics, that since we started this campaign we have achieved 100 per cent expansion, I do confess that I am sadly disappointed at the rate of planting in the private sector. I know from experience that there is a vast amount of land in small areas on practically every farm that could well be used for private planting both for the benefit of the individual concerned and for turning a useless piece of land that is a burden on the farmer, in as much as he has to pay rent and rates on it, into a valuable asset.
It was for this reason that, notwithstanding the technical advice I received from the officers of the Department, I cut down the area which would qualify for a grant, from an acre to a half acre. Some of my technical people thought that the planting of a half acre could not be regarded as silviculture. To get people, and particularly the small man west of the Shannon, to utilise the odd half acre of waste land, or to do it a half acre at a time, I made that change in the grant system, and it is now possible for an individual to plant a half acre this year, and a half acre next year, perhaps when work is slack, and qualify for a grant. I do not know whether we could go any further by way of inducement to try to get people to utilise their waste land for afforestation. I appeal to all Deputies to use their influence with their constituents in this field, to try to make our people more conscious of the benefits of private planting, for their own good, for the future of their own families and for the ultimate future of the nation.
