The European Court of Auditors is to investigate how some £44 million in EU grant aid for afforestation in Ireland has been largely taken up by Coillte, the State forestry company, and private investors, rather than the small farmers it was meant to assist.
This follows a complaint by Friends of the Irish Environment, a group set up recently to monitor Ireland's compliance with EU environmental regulations. It also maintains that coniferous afforestation has damaged scenic areas and the natural environment.
FIE noted a recent Dail statement by the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Dr Woods, indicating that Coillte had received £30.9 million in EU funding for forestry over the past five years while a further £13.8 million was awarded to investors.
It said an EU regulation, adopted in 1992, specified that only "farmers practising farming as a main occupation" were eligible for aid under the forestry programme. Part of its purpose was to assist in preventing rural depopulation by making small farms more viable.
According to FIE, afforestation has not offered sustainable employment in rural areas and appeared to be "a significant factor" in causing migration to the cities and the death of rural villages. Its economic benefits did not justify the current level of subvention.
"Further, the proportion of conifers to native broadleaves, at 80 per cent, is entirely out of line with apparently more responsible European environmental practices."
FIE also questioned the validity of the 1996 Strategic Plan for Forestry, which envisaged growing enough native timber in Ireland to achieve a critical mass to support a pulp-paper industry. It estimated the cost of achieving this at £3.1 billion over a 35-year period.
"Aside from economic and social arguments, world-famous scenic views have been disfigured," FIE said, adding that there was now an "incontrovertible" case that coniferous afforestation had also damaged water chemistry and fish life in Irish rivers.
"The methods employed in planting and fertilisation appear to have led to acidification and phosphate pollution, contributing to eutrophication and even to toxic algae blooms. Vast tracts of blanket bogs have been destroyed, displacing our native bio-diversity."
FIE also noted that the 1992 EU funding regulation stated that grants were intended to "contribute to forms of countryside management more compatible with environmental balance and to contribute to an eventual improvement in forest resources".
