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THE PROPOSED SALE of Coillte harvesting rights has come in for further criticism with a warning that it would lead to the closure of all ten of Ireland’s sawmills and the loss of as many as 2,500 jobs.
In a report published today the Irish Timber Council (ITC), the representative body for the country’s sawmills, says that it “makes no sense” for the government to proceed with the sale of the harvesting rights on Coillte land.
“We’re extremely worried that should this sale of the harvesting licence go ahead sawmills will be closed and jobs will be lost,” ITC chairman Pat Glennon told TheJournal.ie today.
The government has committed to selling felling rights in order to raise money to pay off State debt and intends to publish legislation to aid the “development of a modern forestry sector” in the coming months.
The ITC’s intervention is the latest to be critical of the plan. Last month, economist Peter Bacon said the government’s plan “no longer stands up and cannot be justified”.
By coincidence, the Dáil will later today debate a motion put forward by independent TDs that demands the government abandon its plans to sell-off harvesting rights as well as accelerate tree planting to meet an EU-agreed target of 30 per cent forestation across the country.
The ITC says that the sawmill sector accounts for €2.2 billion of the economy annually and warns that selling off harvesting rights would see the purchaser export all of the available logs.
Glennon said that the country’s ten sawmills are “totally dependent” on Coillte for its supply of raw material and pointed out that sawmills in Ireland already pay a premium for the material.
“We’re paying 29 per cent more than mills in the UK so the government is extracting maximum amounts for harvesting rights anyway,” Glennon claimed, adding that “mills will definitely close and jobs will be lost” if the government pursues its plans.
“All these jobs are in very rural, remote areas and the prospects of other employment coming in [to these areas] will be very remote,” he said this afternoon.
Coillite owns 7 per cent of Ireland’s land – around 1.2 million acres – but has debts in the region of €180 million and any sale will require that some proceeds of the sale pay off this debt in addition to paying down the State’s debt.
The government has committed to selling off some state assets in a bid to raise around €3 billion in order to meet the targets set down in the EU/IMF bailout agreement.
Earlier Glennon said in a statement: “Any purchaser of the harvesting rights is naturally going to take advantage of this and increase prices further in order to secure a quick return on their investment.
“There is no room for sawmill operators to absorb any level of price increase and the consequence is that sawmills could close with important employment being lost in rural areas.”
The ITC also claims in its report that the sale of harvesting rights would fall “well short of the mooted valuation of €400 million to €600 million”.
The report concludes: “This is an enforced sale with few if any net proven benefits to the Irish economy, the general taxpayers and certainly of no obvious benefit to the forestry or the sawmill sectors.
The report says that if the government does proceed with the sale then provisions must be put in place to protect the supply to Irish sawmills.
Glennon told TheJournal.ie that he recognised the need for the government to raise funds but said that the coalition should not be “penny-wise and pound-foolish”. More forestation would in time “provide a better source of income to the government long-term”, he claimed.
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under no circumstances should he be handed to usa
@joe doyle: Why there they are supposed to be the good guys nothing will happen to him surely.
@joe doyle: He’s a dreadful individual he conned his friends into losing half a million when they put up his bail then did a runner, he’s a spy & and a traitor putting lives at risk he deserves never to see the light of day again.
@Joe Thorpe: He’s only guilty of telling the truth. Western domination would come tumbling down if that kind of honesty became common place – gotta crush him to make sure other journalists tow the party line.
This comment from @tom_fowdy on twitter is very apt.
“Western propaganda is based on the following principles:
1) We are morally superior and enlightened
2) X country is doing horrible things
3) We need to act and do something about it
And because of point 1, 2 and 3 concurrently are believed every single time.”
@Joe Thorpe:
You are badly linformed.
He has committed no crime. The Swedes have dropped the false rape charge which the US/USA were using to get him to the US, where he faced charges of treason for revealing the war crimes of the US/NATO warmongers.
Now he will be extradited to the US, where he will not get a fair trial and be either “suicided” or murdered slowly by solitary confinement and torture. Guantanamo still exists, there are prisioners there without trial for years.
The US have promised a fair trial and no restrictive measures against him. But if he contravenes any of the conditions of his imprisonment according to the head of the CIA, these guarantees will fall.
The same CIA which investigated assassinating Assange in the past.
@Joe Thorpe:
It is you who is a dreadful individual, what have you done for mankind except make silly remarks?
Julian Assange has more courage, brains and integrity than you had or will have.
Stop watching Sky New/reading the Sun or other British rubbish and try to get information from sources that are not British government mouthpieces.
That includes many Irish media.
Will they be handing over the diplomats wife?
@motojack: She will be under trial in the US and conclusion will be that motorcyclist caused the accident by driving on the wrong side of the road.
@motojack: That was the problem, she and her husband weren’t diplomats and didn’t have diplomatic immunity. I can understand how it can happen as I’ve driven in the US many times. Your natural tendency is to drive on the side you are used to, you really have to pay attention. Why she just didn’t stay and deal with it I don’t know, she probably would have been given a slap on the hand and a driving ban.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: not likely. She would have had to do time more than likely. Britain is draconian when it comes to road deaths or even crashes that are non fatal.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Both she and her husband are intelligence agents and apparently pretty senior ones . The Americans are not going to allow people like that to be locked up.
@motojack:
No way! The Yanks never hand over their citizens, but expect other countries to do so. Usually the Brits trip themselves over to facilitate them.
Some years ago a US fighter plane flew UNDER the cables of a cabin taking skiers up a mountain in Italian, killing all on board.
The four US military were whipped out of Italy immediately, and never faced charges.
Julian Assange has killed nobody, he has merely exposed the hypocrisy and lies of the “Western” governments, including Ireland, and their war crimes.;
For this he is being punished, also to send a message to other journalists that the truth must not be let out, ever.
@Colin Conlan:
Brilliant!
Yet they won’t send Anne Sacoolas back for killing Harry Dunne and fleeing the country. Disgraceful double standards.
@Mark Brown: https://youtu.be/LVwby34mR6E?t=200
On the basis of ‘four light assurances from US authorities’… Oh yeah, like they have a good track record there.
Shocking and sad day for so called ‘Freedom of speech’ and ‘Democracy’…. And all at the hands of the 2 biggest so called ‘crusaders’ of the ‘free’ world
Freedom of speech is great, until you say what “they” don’t like.
@Kieran Woods: Freedom of speech is only to particular case of saying something irrelevant to a deaf audience. Everything else draws penalty by some law.
The rte website claims the case against Assange is because he “attempted to obtain and disclose national defence information” no mention that Assange actually made public war crimes by US in Iraq, rte is Orwellian to the core in their mastery of language for hiding relevant facts
Imagine he’s only crime was making govts look bad. Telling everyone the truth at what was going and govts all over the world were scrambling. At the end of the day what the US did was illegal and they committed mass murder in the middle east likewise as they had done in Vietnam and anyone who exposed them was the enemy.
There was a doc leaked where it showed the UK GCHQ were tapping all Ireland’s internet cables and harvesting all the private data so they could spy on Irish citizens. Somehow our govt was ok with that!
Lap-dog and Poodle come to mind.
He has severe mental health issues. This is a death sentence.
The objective here is to slowly drive Assange to complete breakdown, it will be dragged out over years to achieve this end, any pretence that the British judicial system is totally independent of the political establishment is farcical.
It will serve as a warning to any future whistleblowers what awaits them if they expose war crimes by any western nation.
The absolute craven attitude from the msm is hardly surprising, case gets coverage only from the legal proceedings point of view but no pressure from the media on politicians to protect whistleblowers that are doing the job the msm are not allowed to do, the EU with all their pretence about protecting human rights are about as silent in this matter as they are regards the war in Yemen and the butchering of a journalist by the Saudis, it’s easy speak out againts clowns like Lukashenko but not good oul uncle sam and buddies, a sad day for proper journalism and the rights of individuals against persecution by militaristic states.
It is easy now for UK to rule subjectively on what they want, as ECJ is out of the way.
Frightening and despicable. You think we live in an enlightened, free society in the West, but do something big enough the establishment doesn’t like and see what happens.
It will be interesting to see if the US adhere to their assurances … serving his sentence in Australia , for example…. that would be hard to swallow as he’s an arch enemy to their LEAs they want an example made of him , harsh sentence and incarceration , as if they hadn’t already done this already to others whistleblowers .
A disgraceful decision but also a totally predictable one. The timing during Biden’s Summit for Democracy is ironic seeing as Freedom of The Press is such a big part of that event.
And we still let state killers land in Shannon and head off to the middle east to indiscriminately murder men women and children.
Will the sht just hit the fan….. And the walls and got smeared.
Great news.
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