Mattie McGrath: Warns forestry chaos is crippling rural economy

Yes, go raibh maith agot, cooing no meid, go raibh maith agot, Count Kola. Minister, I wish you well on your new portfolio and as it's been said, Minister Creed in the last government just ignored everything agriculture, everything rural Ireland, the beef balance, no matter what it was, I wouldn't do it, but this is an effort here, although I feel the bill is feeble and a bit inept and we put down many amendments and I want to thank Green in our office for putting it together and to try and spend it. I hope, Minister, that you won't, like the Senate, be rejected. all the amendments, they're well meant and we understand rural Ireland, we're all from rural Ireland and not being anti-Dublin, we have no issue with Dublin people and Deputy Crowe even mentioned it, that, you know, more plants and parks and everything else, but more than that, we have a huge housing crisis and I hear Deputy Mayor Barrett every day and everybody else content about that, but we haven't the timber now to roof the houses. We're importing it from Russia and other areas, it's shocking. I'd like to salute Maydard and Plan Mellon and Smart Plain Waterford for the excellent skills they have and employment they give and excellent use and finished product, they come on in leaps and bounds and Pat Beedmore there as a manager there on the plant in Maydard and give 300 jobs between them, but at the moment, Minister, the whole situation is grinding to a halt. It's below its knees because of objections and because of, and the Department have to take some responsibility too, because they haven't been dealing with them fast enough, objecting, objecting and they're hundreds of miles away from some of the objections. I have no problem with a person, whatever they're planning for a hen house or a Georgian building, you have to have a planning process and you have to have a right of objection, no problem with that, where you're materially affected, with light or with roads or with anything else, but people, as I said, hundreds of miles away having the right to object and hold up the progress is shocking. Farmers have planted forestry 45 years ago as a pension scheme, some of them got grants to do it, some of them planted good land, which is a shame. But nonetheless, they played their part and now it's ready for harvest and they're not being allowed to cut it and they've held up for two years. As far as the contractors, some of them have 2 million worth of equipment, encouraged to buy them because we're expecting to have an output far away than what we have, we're only a quarter of our output that we should be at. The Hawleyers then, the Sommels, of which there are many in like to salute, Sheehan's in Burncutt, indeed O'Grady's in Holyford, and indeed Droghan's Sommels, named after the late Frank Droghan, a freedom fighter, and indeed he ran now by doing our Pollard, or many, that I'm only mentioning a few, and the employment they give, and the source of, you know, joy they give, and this time of year people will be out on their Christmas, you know, Santa Cribs and everything else from them, and playhouses and you name it. It's just fine, a Melbourne market as well as a rural market, but this thing has gone into complete chaos. As I said, the last minister and his Fianna Gale government, they forgot about, and supported by Fianna Fáil, a continent, they forgot completely about rural Ireland. You think none of them lived in rural Ireland, and they abandoned rural Ireland across a whole plethora, and successive governments for the last 15 years. But this is crisis, and we talk about the environment, and indeed the emissions, and whatever else, and what new planting can do, because all these people that want to cut their harvest, harvest their crops, they will be getting income factors, at least they own again, to row their waste there, and plant new, so they need to be, and they can be looked at different types of trees as well, and, but they can't cut them, so what other section of society would put up would not be allowed to have their harvest? We saw what happened with killings, they brought people in from abroad in the middle of the COVID to do their harvest. We saw the supports given different years for the harvest of the corn. If you don't have the harvest, the harvest is rich, the labourers are few, if you don't have the harvest, I mean, we have nothing in an industry. So, they have been denied all that, and I want to say that it's time that the Serial Objectives, as I said, it's a 2.3 billion economy worth to Ireland, and most of that has a role in Ireland. And I've seen the forestry, in fairness to them, they can make roads better than any county councils, and they have drainage systems that are impeccable, and they could teach the councils in a lot of cases how to make the roads. So, we need to, as I said, look after the jobs, look after the farmers, look after the contractors. These are all people that put their investment in, huge investments in machinery, in trucks, in the salamines, upgrading their machinery, and they've been the final product for building houses and roofs. I'm doing a renovation myself at the moment, and the builder has great difficulty in getting timber. So, how are we going to get the houses if we haven't this? So, we have the cat before the horse. So, I need honesty and integrity and openness in this new Legislation Minister. I also need a review mechanism after six months of how it's working. This can't come fast enough to allow these people to breed, to allow some of them who have sick siblings, or sick husbands or wives, and they want to pay their pension scheme. Remember, they're denied the fair deal also, the farming and business people. So, we can't be kicked all the time, because we need to be allowed to live, and we will generate the work, employ people, generate the conditions to work, and give a better economy, and give a better employment to people as well also. Thank you very much.