On August 2, Minister [of State] Pippa Hackett, minister for land use, biodiversity and forestry spoke of her “vision” when welcoming the Forestry Programme 2023–2027.
Delayed in Brussels by several organisations that Minister Hackett would consider among her party’s supporters, the programme has actually been in abeyance since 2020 when the 2014-2020 Forestry Programme ended.
The minister’s tenure in office has been marked by an absence of vision and the virtual collapse of our forestry industry as she and her fellow [colleagues] within the Forest Service work to ‘Disneyify’ the industry.
Forestry
She has presided over a Forest Service that is bereft of vision, ethics and morality in my opinion.
Foresters, no longer able to find work in a niche industry which is wholly licensed by the Forest Service and which depends on efficient administration, have left for New Zealand and Canada in search of work.
In an age when we are reminded that trees are needed to capture carbon, Minister Hackett has acted otherwise with regard to tree-planting.
Taoiseach and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin are no less culpable for this fiasco as they gifted forestry to the Greens as part of the deal for forming a coalition government.
I’d like to hear both defend Minister Hackett’s stewardship of [this sector]. I’d add that forestry is the work of statesmen, a rarity among our politicians.
Thus, after a three-year delay in providing a new forestry programme, and with the Department of Agriculture’s press office working overtime to herald the wonderful news from Brussels, we foresters have neither a comprehensive description of the plan, let alone an application form to begin implementing the programme.
It’s time for Minister Hackett to do the decent thing and admit to her incompetence, for the abolition of the Forest Service and for its replacement with an independent forest authority, run by competent folk with the best interests of this country and forestry at heart.
From Richard Romer, Ennis, Co. Clare.