Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 January 2023
795. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when did his advisers or any of the Minister for State’s advisers become aware of the forestry deal between Coillte and a company (details supplied). [4624/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraCoillte is a private limited company established under the Forestry Act 1988 and is operationally independent from the Minister and Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I am, therefore, not in position to comment on any operational issues relating to the establishment of the new investment fund. Neither my Department nor myself were involved in the establishment of the Fund.
In relation to the issue of balanced afforestation, this Government has committed €1.3 billion to the new Forestry Programme. The primary aim of the Programme is to enable Ireland to use its potential for afforestation to help meet its national emission reduction and biodiversity obligations while, at the same time, supporting the forestry sector and farm families. This is biggest and best-funded Forestry Programme ever introduced by any Government here, and it has been designed to ensure that farmers will be its primary beneficiaries.
Coillte advised the Department of its intention to increase its afforestation during the development of their new Forestry Strategic Vision, which was launched on 21st April 2022. In meetings with Minister of State Hackett and myself as well as our officials dating back to 2021, Coillte indicated that it would be an enabler of new afforestation through the Coillte Nature initiative for planting native woodlands and through their involvement in Afforestation Funds focussed on commercial forestry. The confirmation to Minister Hackett and I as well as our respective offices that this Fund was operational and the identity of all parties to the deal came in a letter sent by Coillte to my Department on 16th December 2022.
Coillte will not sell any existing publicly owned forests to the fund, nor will Coillte seek to purchase any other public land on behalf of the fund. Any land purchased by the fund will already be in private ownership, and no private landowner will be forced to sell land to the fund. The scale of the new planting envisaged is such that Coillte does not expect the establishment of the fund to have an impact on the price of farmland, nor indeed is it in any way in the interest of Coillte or the fund to drive up land prices at a time that they are seeking to acquire land.
Senior representatives of Coillte met with myself and Minister Hackett on 19th January and outlined their intention that the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund will plant an average of 700 hectares of new forests across each of the next five years. They advised that the total area of new forests planted through the fund will deliver roughly 3.5% of the 100,000 hectares of new forests Coillte has committed to enabling by 2050. They further outlined that the Fund is one of a number of models Coillte will deploy in contributing to the States overall forestry targets. The Government has been clear that this is not our preferred model for delivery of the afforestation targets and we have asked Coillte to consider a range of options and revert to us with some ideas for other delivery models.
