Legislative Process
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-11
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Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal East

I agree with the Deputy. This is a priority. It needs to move quicker but there are a lot of stakeholders. To be frank about it, this is being made more complex than it should be because we are respecting the views of other stakeholders. We need to ensure the regulatory changes needed for new forestry are in place because the State is not going to be able to, nor should it, manage every private forest or private piece of land in the country. The State should not pay for it all either. The agreement with the Irish Farmers Association that was in place, which was a relatively loose agreement on forestry management, needs to be updated and put in legislation. We are operating under the 1927 Act and grey areas have been identified with respect to right of access. We are bottoming those out now. I met my team earlier this week. We are dependent on other stakeholders and Departments to work with us, which they are doing, but this needs to be done really quickly. I share the Deputy's sense of frustration with the pace heretofore but I assure him the legislation is being afforded priority. We need to get it done.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-11