The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is to carry out a sample review of property sales in Coillte this year.
Coillte is a private limited company established under the Forestry Act 1988 and is operationally independent from DAFM, but the department is a shareholder in Coillte.
One ordinary share is held by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, and the remainder of the issued share capital is held by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe.
As part of the Minister for Agriculture’s “oversight role”, DAFM will conduct “a review of a small random sample of records maintained for property sales by Coillte”.
This will take place during 2024, but “no timeframe has been allocated to this exercise, as yet” according to DAFM.
Coillte manages approximately 440,000ha of land, which is equivalent to 7% of the total land area of the country.
Out of this, 364,000ha is land under forest while 76,000ha is non-forested land.
Coillte
DAFM is also in the process of drafting a new Shareholder Letter of Expectation (SLOE) for Coillte with the assistance of the New Economy and Recovery Authority (NewERA) – which provides financial and commercial advice to government ministers and departments in relation to their shareholdings in state companies.
A SLOE is required to be updated every two years.
The next letter will “further” clarify that, as required under the Forestry Act 1988, Coillte must notify DAFM of any land sales above a value of €150,000 “however the minister cannot approve individual sales as this is an operational matter for Coillte”.
According to Coillte’s last published annual report for 2022 – its next annual report is scheduled to be published in April 2024 – the company reported pre-tax profits of €122 million on a turnover of €478 million in 2022.
It is scheduled in 2024 to develop a 10-year strategic plan for its Forest Estate Strategic Land Use Plan.
One of the project’s that the company is seeking to develop is a “People’s Millennium Forest”.
It is understood that Coillte is currently awaiting legal advice from DAFM before a memorandum of understanding (MOU) can be signed in relation to the forest project.