The logic pursued by the supporters of the Bill is rush, rush, rush. It is a dangerous rush and it is one that may well lead to people cutting off their nose to spite their face. I fully understand the anxiety, concern and pressure among small farmers who invested in forestry and who feel the need to gain a return on that investment. They should certainly be supported, as should people who rely for an income on forestry and investments they made in that regard. If, however, proper oversight of the impact of the fel…

Friedrich Engels's life partner was a woman from rural Ireland called Lizzie Burns. He stated: Let us not [...] flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the …

Mary Byrne.

I find myself, strangely, in agreement with Deputy Fitzmaurice, or perhaps it is not so strange. We should not be debating this Bill. We certainly should not be rushing it through in this way. I have learned a lot from the Deputies Danny and Michael Healy-Rae, Mattie McGrath and others. I genuinely bow to their knowledge and experience of certain situations, the views of farmers and all of those points. However, I also believe that our current forestry model is a problem. That is not the fault of individual farmers…

One of the benefits of democracy, when it works at all which is not that often, is that one learns things. Even better, people are watching and are hearing the debate, which I am certainly learning from. They then bring to bear facts that impact on the debate we have heard. I have received one communication that is very interesting in that regard. It challenges very strongly the rationale behind the Bill and the rationale of many of the Deputies who have spoken in favour of this amendment. The rationale behind the …

Let us have a guess. Seeing as all these blackguards are out there causing uproar, somebody must have a rough idea of the percentage of afforestation licences were appealed. The answer is 1.1%.

What?

What percentage of felling licences were appealed? It was 2.77%. In 2020, just over 1% of afforestation licences were appealed and 75% of felling licences were not appealed. There was a jump in the number of appeals in 2020 but it is still considerably less than one would be led to believe from the argument that there is a massive load of blackguards out there, clogging up the system. What might explain the clogging up of the system is the Department, not the blackguards-----

We have been hearing a lot of rhetoric about blackguards, presumably environmental blackguards.

I must be getting somewhere-----

I must be touching a nerve now; that is all I can say. I must be touching a nerve.

The decisions being made by the Department, not the appeals, are way down.

Decisions issued by the Department on felling up to the end of August were way down, from nearly 3,500 at the end of August last year to just 1,040 this year. The issue of the supply of timber to sawmills lies at the door of the Department, not the environmental blackguards or the appeals committee.

If the Deputies can provide me with alternative statistics, I invite them to do so. I listened very carefully to everything they have said. If they have statistics that challenge those I provided on the appeals percentages, I would be happy to hear them. I am an open-minded person and I listen.

What is wrong with hugging trees? Deputy Mattie McGrath might do it to calm himself down occasionally. This suggests that the problem lies with the Department, not with blackguards or the appeals process in particular. If these facts-----

What is Deputy McGrath's source, other than references to blackguards? There are lots of blackguards out there, unnamed.

Let us try to find agreement here. Would empirical evidence be useful in this debate? I think it would be quite useful. Maybe the Minister or Minister of State can provide us with some empirical evidence about the extent of the appeals against afforestation and felling licences. We need numbers on this. Is the problem being referred to by the Deputies here - and obviously there is a problem - to do with appeals or with a very dramatic drop in the ability of the Department to make decisions?

Let us find out. That is the Deputy's opinion but we need facts. Let us have evidence-based decision making.

I listened very well.

The Minister of State should provide empirical evidence to back up her arguments. It would be short-sighted, without that evidence, to in any way short-circuit, limit or narrow the basis upon which people can, for good reason, object to or appeal licence decisions. According to my source, the Department's ability to make decisions has dropped off because it was found that the method of appealing licences was not in compliance with EU law. That is actually what has happened. Compliance has required a considerable sl…