The Minister for the Environment, Eamon Ryan, has told the Dáil, that Coillte “needs to change”.
“It has done a brilliant job but it was legislated for in the late 1980s when the emphasis and focus was on privatisation and commercial lumber production.
“That has changed. Coillte’s mandate will be changed. It is already changing towards a closer-to-nature model,” Minister Ryan said today (Thursday, January 26).
The Green Party leader was responding to the leader of the Labour Party, Ivana Bacik, who had voiced her “grave concerns” over the Gresham House, Coillte-backed Irish Strategic Forestry Fund.
Deputy Bacik said the fund would “fundamentally be an arrangement which will facilitate the handing over of millions of euro of public money into the wallets of private investors and vulture funds”.
“It begs the question of what is government policy on forestry in Ireland. If there is concern on government benches about this deal, as there appears to be, then will it be abandoned?
“Will there be a change in tack to address the crisis in the forestry sector?” Deputy Bacik questioned.
The Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue has repeatedly said on a number of occasions this week that the Gresham House, Coillte-backed forestry fund is not the government’s “preferred option”.
Deputy Bacik then asked in the Dáil that if it was not the government’s preferred model had “Coillte gone rogue on the government?”
In response the Minister for the Environment said a new €1.3 billion forestry programme had been announced last year and that farmers would have a “critical role” in this programme.
But he also acknowledged that there would be changes in store for Coillte.
“We recognise that what has been done with forestry, while it delivered acres and lumber, did not deliver better biodiversity or a better nature solution in our country. Coillte too is part of that change.
“To help it do that, I believe we need to look at the state aid rules which, in 2003, under legal challenge, restricted what Coillte can do.
“We will go to Brussels, as we are doing for a variety of different issues related to climate change, to get different rules. ”
“We will also get Coillte involved in afforestation on public lands and other lands which are not covered under the likes of this deal that was done with the private sector,” the minister added.
He said private investment in forestry was taking place anyway and the “Coillte deal will at least allow it to be open forest”.
Separately the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has met with Coillte’s chief executive, Imelda Hurley and managing director, Mark Carlin.
IFA’s farm forestry chair Jason Fleming described it as a “robust discussion” and said it had been left in no doubt that farmers “were vehemently opposed to a state-owned forestry company facilitating the purchase of private lands for investors and funds”.
“Coillte did confirm that they were not working on any further projects with private funds,” he added.