andMr. Tunney asked the Minister for Lands why the normal planting grant in respect of private forestry planting has been withheld in respect of applicants (details supplied) in County Laois.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Laois Planting Grants.
1.
Planting grants in respect of private forestry planting are not normally paid to persons purchasing and planting lands in close proximity to existing State forests.
Why?
The Department feel that planting, particularly of small areas, in a neighbourhood which the Forestry Division is anxious to acquire for the expansion of an existing State forest is likely to prevent the creation of a viable big forest which would have economies of scale and management, and so on. The disfavour with which the Department view the planting of small plots beside a large State forest is implicit in the absolute discreation which the Minister has and of which applicants are warned in the Department's explanatory leaflet.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary accept that the plantation in question has been planted by a gentleman who is an expert in forestry?
If he is, he ought to be aware of the Department's policy, which is to exercise a discretion against applications in respect of plots near large existing State plantations which the State would be anxious to extend by acquiring suitable plots beside them.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary accept that this bureaucratic vindictiveness is entirely in conflict with the EEC's proposed directive in respect of private afforestation?
I could not accept that at all. I could not accept the Deputy's description of the Department's policy. I refer the Deputy to a speech made by a former Minister for Lands, ex-Deputy Michael Moran of Castlebar, on the 15th October, 1960, in which he very strongly reprobated the very practice which our present Minister is equally trying to discourage. As long ago as 1960, the policy as expressed by the then Minister was that he thought it should be readily appreciated that the planting grant scheme would not achieve its purpose if it were allowed to interfere with the proper development of State forests. The then Minister said he felt bound to draw attention to the fact that planting grants were payable under the Forestry Act of 1946 solely at his discretion and that there were bound to be some situations of the kind he had described, which was on all fours with the present one, in which the interests of orderly unified planning would force him to withhold grants. That policy has been pursued ever since by the Minister in charge of that Department and is not being departed from by the present Minister.
I am attracted to the Parliamentary Secretary's adherence to the policy of former Ministers. The Parliamentary Secretary accepts that this country is different from every other European country in the desire of the State to monopolise afforestation and that ultimately it is not desirable?
We are having a statement instead of a question.
I do not accept that at all. A very large plantation started from scratch in a completely new site would be in a different situation and a different set of criteria would apply to it. The case to which the question refers, as I understand it, is in respect of a relatively limited plantation cheek by jowl with an existing large State plantation in an area in which the State would wish to expand.