Laois Offaly Minister criticised over proposed Coillte deal

A deal between Coillte and a British investment firm for 12,000 hectares of forestry was branded a land grab by a Laois TD.

Speaking in the Dáil, Deputy Brian Stanley criticised Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue and Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Pippa Hackett.

“I say to the Minister and the Minister of State that the proposed deal between Gresham House and Coillte is nothing short of a land grab,” said Deputy Stanley.  

“This time, it is not English landlords with an army in front of them clearing off the peasants but the Government, which is facilitating the transfer of hundreds of millions of euro to a British company to snap up large tracts of Irish land and to put it out of the reach of rural communities. See how this goes down in Camross and Clonaslee if the Minister of State thinks that people are behind her on this.’’

“The failure to meet targets to increase afforestation has been caused by the failure of the Government to put a proper framework in place and to sort out problems in the sector. The amount of land being planted has collapsed dramatically from 8,314 hectares in 2010 to just 2,244 hectares last year. We are way off target on climate and timber,” said Dep Stanley. 

He said there are huge delays in obtaining felling licences and the Minister knows that. “Some have been waiting for up to two years. We must do better. For commercial reasons, for the supply of commercial timber, for environmental reasons and to meet our climate targets, we need to plant a minimum of 8,000 hectares per annum. We need to increase the variety of trees that are planted,’’ he remarked. 

“Coillte is a publicly-owned company. The Minister, the Minister of State and the Government are the sole shareholders acting on our behalf. As for the idea that the owners have no say, have their hands off the wheel, or are asleep at the wheel and cannot stop this, it is a ludicrous suggestion. This Government and the deal with Gresham House follows a pattern of moves by conservative Governments that use investment funds to control social housing and health services to run a lottery,’’ Dep Stanley said. 

“They tried it with water - that was what they were lining up next - and now they are trying it with forestry. This is straight out of the playbook of Margaret Thatcher and the British Tories, and Senator Hackett should be ashamed of herself, as a Green Party Minister of State, to be going along with this right-wing move,’’ he continued. 

“People in rural Ireland and the midlands value semi-State companies. Alongside this, farmers want to be involved in sustainable and efficient farming programmes that deliver our needs in commercial timber and meet our climate targets. The Ministers must stop this land grab, implement immediately the recommendations of the Mackinnon report and a new forestry strategy, and start clearing the backlog of licences for forestry in the system,’’ he said. 

Following the debate Brian Stanley said “the Sinn Féin proposal was passed by the Dáil and the Government should now respect the democratic mandate of they now have.”

Among those critical of the proposed Coillte deal was Deputy Michael Healy-Rae who harshly criticised Minister Hackett when he addressed the Minister for Agriculture. 

“To be fair, it must be difficult for the Minister to sit alongside the Minister of State, knowing that she is the biggest failure as a Minister with responsibility for forestry since 1946. I told her that before. There has never been a Minister in charge of forestry who has failed so much, done so little and driven forestry into the ground. She should ask the people the length and breadth of the country who own or are involved in forestry -those who sought permits to make roads, thin forests or clear fell - what they got from her. The answer is nothing,” Deputy Healy-Rae said. 

Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue defended his Department colleague: 

“Let us deal with the facts and let us be proportionate. When both of us came into office, I was a month or two after the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, we both came to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. There was a crisis in forestry. It was on the floor,” he told the Dail.  

“There are 60% increases in premiums. The Minister of State, Senator Hackett, has done this. In the outgoing programmes there are premiums for only 15 years if one is a farmer or a non-farmer. We have increased it for farmers from 15 years to 20 years,” said Minister McConalogue.