The Irish Farmers Association’s (IFA) forestry chairperson, Padraig Stapleton, has called on the government to partly fund a national insurance policy for private forestry growers.
“I’d like to empathise with all the growers around the country who had crops wiped out. There’s no insurance for trees over 20-years-old, and there’s going to be no compensation for such either,” he told Agriland.
Protecting the forestry industry in the long-term is a priority for Stapleton, but supporting forestry farmers in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn is at the top of his agenda he has said.
“The first thing that is going to have to happen is an amnesty on licences, and work through a simple code of practice and standard mitigation rules, that has to be implemented immediately,” he said.
“We don’t have time to wait around to get licences, by the time it’s gone through, the timber on the ground is going to be worthless altogether.”
The north Tipperary man is concerned about different pesticides that may destroy fallen trees.
“The pests we have in Limerick and Clare at the moment, if you leave all those trees on the ground and they start to die off, that has the potential to provide a huge breeding ground for that new pest. We need to get the timber off the ground as quick as possible,” Stapleton said.
Forestry
In the long-term, the chairperson of the IFA’s Forestry Committee believes the government needs to support growers.
“We’re going to need a national insurance put in place for private growers, and it’s going to have to be part funded by the government,” he said.
“Also there’s going to have to be some sort of reconstitution grant on the replanting obligations. The replanting costs are quite expensive. There’s going to have to be a scheme around that implemented.”
Stapleton doesn’t believe that Ireland has the resources to clean up the damage from the storm on its own.
“I would say to government, we must put the call out for international help. There isn’t the contractor capabilities in the country to cope with what the job ahead entails with the current output we have, it’s not possible,” he concluded.