I am afraid I will have to call a vote on this proposal. It is completely unacceptable. The manipulation of the speaking order is bad enough but the ramming through of the Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2020 on Wednesday is an absolute abuse of democracy and it cannot be allowed to stand without serious objection. The Bill has been described as "shocking" by the Environmental Pillar. The latter group, the Woodland League and others have expressed deep concern about the net deforestation that may now be happening because of the dysfunctional industrial, profit-driven forestry model in this country, which is doing nothing to protect or enhance biodiversity and doing nothing to reach our climate goals. It is driven only by money interests.

The Deputy cannot debate the Bill on the Order of Business.

We have submitted dozens of amendments. Deputy Naughten, who has a different perspective on the Bill, has indicated that he put in 12 amendments. There are some 100 amendments in total.

We have put in a number of amendments and we want to debate them.

I agree with Deputy Danny Healy-Rae that all the amendments should be debated. It is unacceptable that Second Stage should run on into Committee and Final Stages when most of those amendments will not even be debated. That is completely unacceptable and there is no justification for ramming the Bill through in this way. I sought a briefing on the Bill from the Oireachtas Library and Research Service but none was available because of its late publication. Yet the Government is proposing to ram through all Stages. We have facilitated the Government in necessary emergency measures but what is happening now is a sustained, ongoing abuse of the democratic process that is going to lead to bad legislation in this case and possibly severe consequences for the Irish forestry sector.

I too object in the strongest possible way to the short time being given on Wednesday for the debate on all Stages of the Bill. I objected at the Business Committee to the proposal. I suggested that we start debating it at 10 a.m. today or at noon, but I was told that was not feasible for the Cabinet. It is totally ridiculous to have such important legislation debated in this way.

I fundamentally oppose what Deputy Boyd Barrett is talking about. Our concern is for real jobs and the real people who have trees planted.

Tree huggers and tree lovers are holding up the Bill and clogging it up with frivolous amendments. We want to stop people who live in the city objecting to plantations that are 100 miles and 200 miles away. This is scandalous. Families are being deprived of their living, they cannot harvest their timber, contractors are being deprived of their living, the mills are without timber and builders consequently cannot get materials to build houses. It is farcical coming from Deputy Boyd Barrett, who is always talking about housing, that he is so short-sighted he cannot see this. I ask him to go and plant some trees in his leafy backyard if he wants to. He can see how trees grow and how we in the countryside mind them. It is ridiculous.

If we had decent jobs instead of bogus self-employment in forestry then I might agree with Deputy McGrath.

Six hours are provided tomorrow-----

There is in Dublin what we do not have down the country.

Please, can the Taoiseach respond without interruption?

Six hours are provided for the Bill in tomorrow's business. The Bill is urgent. The issue has been going on for years. There have been serial objections on an industrial scale, which is not merited and is not fair.

Most of them upheld.

I have no issue with people objecting. People are entitled to make an objection. All that the Bill is doing is aligning the issue of licences in forestry, felling and planting to the conventional planning system. It still allows for objections but it creates fees for those who want to appeal and so on, in line with normal planning situations. I agree with a broad-based forestry policy. I am not sure that anyone in this House has ever said we should end commercial forestry. A lot of jobs depend on commercial forestry and many farmers, for example, entered into contracts some 20 years ago-----

They got grants.

-----with grants to do it, with an expectation they would be able to fell those trees in due course. The timber industry had expectations there would be a supply of timber to enable production and jobs and so on, and the supply of materials to the construction sector. All of this is threatened. The urgency is that by the end of October or November there will not be an industry and jobs will be lost.

The Government is wrecking the industry as it is.

No. That is the reality. The Deputy articulates very eloquently on behalf of workers and so on, but if this Bill is not passed, whatever chance we have, there will be a lot of workers made redundant unnecessarily because of inertia of the Oireachtas, of the legislators, and of the Executive. The Executive has taken its decision and has presented the Bill. We also want to encourage native species, which have also been objected to. In the rush to object to everything in July, everything was objected to-----

This is just propaganda.

Sorry, Deputy, please.

-----including native tree plantations and so on. The wonderful Dublin project was objected to also in the rush to object to everything. I am fully for stronger and enhanced biodiversity and for grants to farmers to grow native trees. I want the rebalancing of forestry policy. I do not subscribe to the idea that we put an end to commercial forestry.

Big money and big interests are involved in this.

There is nothing wrong-----

It is about families' survival.

Deputies, please.

There is nothing wrong with people being tree huggers and tree lovers. Trees are wonderful.

They can hug them in St. Stephen's Green.

Trees are probably the most effective thing we have in this country to fight climate change in the future. That is my view. We should grow far more than we are growing at the moment. The current planning process-----

Methinks the Taoiseach does protest too much.

-----is paralysing the entire situation.

Deputies, we are talking about arrangements for the taking of legislation. We do not have to debate the legislation itself, please.

That is what the Taoiseach is doing.

Is the proposal for taking Wednesday's business agreed to?

Agreed.

It is not agreed.

Is the proposal for dealing with Thursday's business agreed to?

It is not agreed. I will not waste the House's time with another vote as people will want to get on with other business but we had a discussion about the length of time that would be made available for the debates on Covid and on the winter plan. A number of members of the Business Committee made it clear that we wanted a slot of two hours and ten minutes for each debate and that we wanted each debate to be taken separately. The times have been reduced back to one hour and 45 minutes each which means that, yet again, smaller groups and parties will have ridiculously short speaking slots to respond to very important issues. That is unacceptable. It is another consequence of the Government's rigging of the speaking arrangements in the House. It does a very serious disservice to the public and to democracy. The slots should be as were requested at the meeting of the committee, that is, two hours and ten minutes for each debate.

More than two hours have been given for each debate.

I am sorry; I meant to say the slots should be 210 minutes long rather than 1 hour and 45 minutes.

We have given over two hours for each debate.

I am sorry; I meant 210 minutes as against one hour and 45 minutes.

We have also split the debate into two separate debates, as requested by all Members representing the Opposition. We have facilitated the requests made through the Business Committee and the Deputy is getting his debate. We have used all Government time. In fact, we have expanded Government time to facilitate both debates. We can only schedule the time as per the request. Debates lasting 210 minutes each would affect the time given to debate the Private Members' Bill that Deputy Boyd Barrett's colleague is bringing forward after the two debates. We can only work within the time given to us as per the schedule. We have given significant time for both debates.

I do not agree but I will not call a vote.

Noting Deputy Boyd Barrett's dissent, is the proposal for dealing with Thursday's business agreed to? Agreed.