TD says sale must be stopped immediately – privatisation of public forest totally unacceptable
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett has said that he is “horrified” to discover that Coillte are selling 16 hectares (39 acres) of public forest of significant archaeological and geological interest at Scalp on the Wicklow/Dublin border. He said that this move by the publicly owned Coillte is an effective privatisation of our national forests.
Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon, the TD said that the sale must be stopped immediately and that the government’s own targets of expanding the forest cover from the current 7% to 17% by 2030, can only be realised by expanding rather than contracting public forests.
Richard Boyd Barrett TD, who spearheaded the successful protests in Avondale and elsewhere to keep Coillte in public ownership in 2012/12013 when it was first proposed as part of the Troika agreement, said:
“I am horrified by this move by Coillte, the state forestry company, to sell off some 16 hectares of public forests, which have significant archaeological and geological significance. This move is totally unacceptable and must be immediately stopped by the Minister. Not only is this an effective privatisation of our forests, it also directly contradicts the government’s own targets to increase forest cover from the current, hopelessly inadequate 7%, to 17% by 2030 and threatens the afforestation agreement at COP26.”
Deputy Boyd Barrett has submitted parliamentary questions to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Heritage on this matter and has also written to Coillte asking them to explain this move.
