They are Independents. They want to have it every way. They are even opposing their own motion now.

What is Deputy O'Rourke's target? The Deputy can tell us all about the climate-----

What is the Sinn Féin policy?

Has it got one yet?

Does it have a policy yet?

Sinn Féin cannot make its own policies.

It does not have a policy.

You have to have a policy in order to debate it.

Every hectare that-----

Every hectare that is felled has to be replanted legally. If a hectare of forestry is felled, there is a legal obligation to replant it.

That is all additional. You replant everything that is felled and what the Deputy is referring to is all additional.

I thank An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan, and the Deputies for the debate here this evening. It is very clear across the floor of the Dáil the strong support there is for afforestation and for growing the area we have in the country under forestry. It is not often we have debates on forestry in the Dáil but it is welcome to see that strong level of support for afforestation and for growing forestry.

I will pick up on a couple of points at the start that came from the contributions. I just want to correct Deputy Sherlock on a point he made once or twice, just so it is clear what the situation is. The Deputy was referring to new licences and the level of new licences over the past two, three and four years. He said that the level of new licences is not matching the level of felling and that we were, therefore, not planting as much as we were felling. He said this once or twice. It is very important to get this c…

Now we are planning targets to grow that further by another 400,000 ha by the year 2050. I just wanted to be clear about that. It is important that people understand that piece. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae made the point that the Minister of State, Senator Pippa Hackett, was the most failed or the worst forestry Minister since 1946.

No, listen, let us deal with the facts.

Let us deal with the facts and let us be proportionate.

We will deal with that too, but let us deal with the facts-----

Let us deal with the facts and let us be proportionate. When both of us came into office, I was a month or two after the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, we both came to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. There was a crisis in forestry. It was on the floor. We had a massive backlog, which had evolved from a change in a court case back in 2017 that meant every licence application took a hell of lot more time and effort, including staff time, to-----

There was a backlog of some 6,000 licences at that stage. This was 6,000 licences waiting for more than 120 days. That is what we faced when we came in three years ago. I remember back to Christmas 2020 when sawmills across the State were running out of wood. They could not get it. I remember the crisis meetings we were having-----

We will always hear from you after the fact. I am dealing with the reference to the Minister of State being the worst Minister since 1946.