The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, has confirmed that Coillte, the semi-state company, has sought permission to invest €10 million in the controversial Gresham House Irish Strategic Forestry Fund.
The fund has “an operational management agreement” with Coillte.
Minister McConalogue told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine that the request from the semi-state company is currently under review by NewERA – which provides financial and commercial advice to government.
He outlined to the committee that the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), which is a state-owned investment fund that invests national savings, has already invested €25 million in the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund.
Both Minister McConalogue and the Minister of State with responsibility for land use and biodiversity, Pippa Hackett, suffered a bruising encounter with members of the joint committee yesterday (Wednesday, January 25) when they met to discuss forestry policy and strategy.
Irish Strategic Forestry Fund
TDs and senators were hugely critical of the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund and Coillte and repeatedly questioned both ministers on when they had first heard about the deal and why they had not moved to halt the deal.
Minister McConalogue told the committee that he was “only aware of the deal after the deal was done” and that he had first been notified in December about the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund.
The minister outlined to the joint committee that the structure of the deal between Coillte, ISIF and Gresham House was “not our preferred option”.
“Our preferred option is for farmers to plant forest on their own land,” he stressed.
But he did add that Coillte’s overall ambition was in line with supporting the government’s own forestry ambitions.
Both ministers also faced repeated questions from committee members on whether the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund could be in anyway altered or amended.
But Minister McConalogue emphasised that both Coillte and the ISIF had “entered into binding contractural arrangements” and that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine had not been a signatory on the contract between Gresham House and Coillte.
During the lengthy meeting with the Oireachtas committee, Minister McConalogue and Minister Hackett repeatedly heard from TDs and senators about significant levels of negative feedback in their constituencies and about their “disappointment” over the Gresham House/Collite-backed forestry fund.
Minister McConalogue told the committee that he understands the public position on the Gresham House/Coillte-backed deal and stressed that it was “not the preferred option”.
He also tried to reassure committee members that as ministers and their departments saw how the deal “might play out more we examined it in a lot more detail”.
“We are very clear that we want to explore the state being a lot more centrally involved and farmers being a lot more involved,” Minister McConalogue added in relation to future forestry programmes.
Both ministers also faced accusations from members of the committee that the Gresham House/Coillte forestry deal would drive up the price of agricultural land and reduce the land available for farmers to purchase.
The former minister for rural and community development, Mayo TD, Michael Ring told Minister McConalogue that “no farmer will be able to buy a bit of land” because Coillte and the National Parks and Wildlife Service was “buying land up all over the country”.
The Independent TD for Cork South-West, Michael Collins, also said that “every farming organisation and every major forestry representative body is opposed to this deal which could end up taking 100,000/ha of farmland out of the reach of local ownership”.