asked the Minister for Lands the amount of land acquired by his Department in the past 12 months which was offered to it for forestry purposes; and the amount of land on offer still waiting to be inspected.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Acquisition of Land for Forestry.
82.
The area acquired by my Department for afforestation during the year ended 31st March, 1967 was 23,822 acres; 18314 acres were deemed to be productive. A total area of 42,231 acres is awaiting inspection. A further 170,936 acres have been inspected and the offers are at various stages of processing.
Could the Minister say if the amount of land offered for forestry purposes is less than before?
I would not like to mislead the Deputy. I can say the units on offer are much smaller as time goes on. Where formerly an offer might comprise 1,000 or 2,000 acres, the average is down now to figures considerably below that in aggregate. I would prefer if the Deputy put down a separate question as to the comparability of these figures with the former intake.
The Minister will appreciate there has been a reduction in planting from 25,000 acres annually to 20,000 acres? Is it not a fact that that reduction was possibly due to the situation obtaining in which there is not sufficient land on offer or is it due to the fact that there is more delay in assessing, valuing and buying the land than heretofore?
The reduction to 20,000 acres was made, as I explained to the Dáil, because of the financial circumstances at that time. We will be back now to 25,000 acres. I have made it clear to the Dáil from time to time that I am not happy with the reserve of land to try to maintain that programme and it is creating a problem for us. We would need much more land in reserve than we have in order to maintain a steady planting programme of 25,000 acres.