Asked Agriculture
Deputy Timmy Dooley asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine given the current flooding of the Shannon Basin and the benefits that trees can have to prevent flooding in river basin catchments and his wish to use forestry to offset greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector, if it is time to increase the planting targets to the past target of 20,000 ha as suggested in the 1996 Growing for the Future document and not the current target of 6,600 ha in 2016 increasing incrementally to 8,290 ha in 2020 as per the Forestry Programme 2014 to 2020 document; if it is time for him to consider a new approach to promoting tree planting, as it is obvious the current approach does not work, as only 6,252 ha were planted in 2013; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2966/16]