Sale of Coillte to be discussed by cabinet

Mothman

This was doing the rounds on the internet close to a year ago.
We had a thread here

See todays Irish Times

A MEMO recommending the sale of State assets will be considered by the Cabinet, possibly as early as next Tuesday, following agreement from the EU-IMF troika that a “sizeable” portion may be used for jobs stimulus.
Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin announced yesterday that there had been a breakthrough on this issue during discussions with the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund as part of the latest review of Ireland’s €67.5 billion bailout programme.
Mr Howlin said the troika had moved from a position where it had insisted the funds could be used only to reduce the country’s debts to a position where it agreed that a portion could be used to create employment.
“We made progress in that regard. We will have sizeable quantities of money available from assets that we can apply to new jobs,” he said during a joint conference with Minister for Finance Michael Noonan on the outcome of the review.
At a later press conference, the EU Commission seemed to play down the concession. Its head of mission Istvan Szekely said plans had to be finalised about the use of cash from the sale of State assets.
“We would like to understand their plans for asset sales and I understand this is in the process,” he said.
Government sources insisted last night that Mr Howlin’s comments had been approved by the troika beforehand. While Mr Howlin refused to be drawn on the extent of asset sales, or the proportion to be used to fund jobs, it is understood the more the Government sells, the higher the proportion of funds available for jobs creation.
In its programme the Government set an upper threshold of €2 billion but now looks more likely to approve more than €3 billion in disposals, including part of ESB. A report prepared by a special group included Dublin Port, shares in Aer Lingus, and parts of Bord Gáis and Coillte in its list of recommendations.
The troika, in its summation, said the Government has met the terms of the €67.5 billion programme so far but that the country faced “considerable challenges” and must implement policy measures.
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I'm not educated on the ins and outs and I open this thread to indicate that the sale of land into private ownership that we may currently have access to and that may currently harbour significant populations of our native flora and fauna.

I'm struggling to believe that this may be an actual reality, but I also believe that I am sometimes very naive and I do not trust that it won't happen.
We have a huge bankers debt to pay :mad:

There is a proactive thread on Athletics forum which includes a template for letter for forwarding to our public representatives.

magicbastarder

i wonder what the 'parts of' coillte being referred to is?
there's been some publicity in the last few days about coillte and windfarm developments; maybe they're trying to raise the profile of that end of the business in preparation for a sale?

Mothman

magicbastarder wrote: »

i wonder what the 'parts of' coillte being referred to is?
there's been some publicity in the last few days about coillte and windfarm developments; maybe they're trying to raise the profile of that end of the business in preparation for a sale?

There is no detail at all what "part" may be, but at this stage I don't think anything can be ruled in or out.

For example it may be non forested lands, which would be the very lands that have the highest biodiversity. The bulk of Coillte lands are soft woods which frankly do little for our native flora and fauna, but is I assume Coillte's main bread and butter, so the non forested lands may not be a big loss in terms of cash revenue.

magicbastarder

i suspect one of coillte's main source of income (in part to justify their CEO's frankly ludicrous salary) is the quiet sale of their more valuable sections of their portfolio, in order to make the balance sheet look healthier than it actually is.

Birdnuts

I gave a preference in the last election to Labour in order to put a halt to such things!! - never again:mad:


PS: Bord na Mona have alot of wildlife rich land as well - will the likes of the Boora parklands be flogged on the cheap too??:(

robp

Apparantly the sale could be the harvesting rights of their commerial forestry. Reports from last October indicate that the land itself is not being considered for sale.

The land Coillte manages on behalf of its shareholders, amounting to some 7% of our land mass, is the state’s core asset, said Minister Coveney. "No one is considering selling Coillte land, and that is off the table."

Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/business/farming/coillte-could-be-sold-as-harvesting-rights-170555.html#ixzz1k5BJStTA

However the situation seems to be evolving rapidly and I am not clear if this is still the sitution. In principle I don't see much ecological value in keeping the conifer monoculture harvesting rights in public ownership. Coillte has been grossly underachieving in its managment for biodiversity anyway.

All the same I am sure there will be political pressure to stop them being sold. Maybe if the protests and pressure is constructive and pushed for much more ecological forestry when the land reverts to public ownership it would advantageous in the longterm. What do you all think?

googsy

Piece in the SBP about this.... the proposal is to sell the forestry rights for 70 or 80 years, not the land and high amenity areas will be apparently protected.

Coveney says that the standing timber could bring in between 1.1 and 1.8 billion and he wants a significant portion of that money to be used for reforestation rather than paying off debt.

recedite

magicbastarder wrote: »

i suspect one of coillte's main source of income (in part to justify their CEO's frankly ludicrous salary) is the quiet sale of their more valuable sections of their portfolio, in order to make the balance sheet look healthier than it actually is.

Indeed there are many examples of areas where public access is restricted, and in some cases the more valuable land has quietly transferred to private individuals later on.

BTW Coillte do not own the land; the Irish people do. Coillte is a management company, but "management" also includes buying and selling small parcels of land.

If the State is bankrupt, it should lease out a proportion of the lands currently being managed by Coillte, or else sell the rights to harvest the timber.

Selling the actual land to Bertie Ahern's foreign investor friends amounts to robbing our children of their land and rightful heritage.