Coillte forestry and land scheme
Deputy Doherty criticised missed afforestation targets and warned of a large land sell-off through Coillte's forestry partnership. The Tánaiste denied any sale of Coillte or public land and said the arrangement was for purchasing land or existing forest.
Following on from some of the questions from other colleagues, the programme for Government commits to a target of 8,000 ha of afforestation per year. The Minister is nowhere near achieving that. In fact, the Government reached just 30% of the target last year. The crisis in the sector has become worse since the Government came into office. As we have learned, Coillte now intends to join a joint venture with a British investment fund, with the first step being a massive sell-off of thousands of hectares of land across rural communities. The Tánaiste has said he wants to explore alternatives, something he repeated today. As he knows, Coillte is State-owned and the Ministers for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Public Expenditure and Reform hold shares in trust for the Irish people. Will he ensure that his Ministers instruct Coillte to halt the sale while the alternatives he suggested are explored?
Comment on this
Coillte is not selling land. The Deputy referred to a massive sell-off. That type of language creates polemics around this. There is no sell-off of Coillte land, and I said that in an earlier response. As I said earlier, it has entered into a partnership with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, which is an Irish State fund, with a view to purchasing land or existing forest. My understanding is that the bulk will be existing forest. There will be no sale of any Coillte-owned forests or publicly owned land. Any other agency will not be selling any publicly owned land to this fund.