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Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy told a hearing of the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee that he had not been able to obtain information on the EIB-financed investors active in the Irish forestry sector, their portfolio and the regions they are targeting.
"Local farmers are being outbidded by foreign companies, where they're planting blanket forests that defy local biodiversity concerns, and then in turn they're taking advantage of exchequer-funded premium payouts," MEP Carthy said.
His question related to a €112m investment plan, first revealed by this newspaper in September 2016 and confirmed last year, to acquire 18,000ha of forestry and consolidate it under a single management structure.
The project, registered in Ireland as the Forais Partnership, brings together private investors led by the Finnish investment firm Dasos, €55m in capital from the Government's Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) and a €28.5m co-investment by the EIB. It targets investment in "improving forest management, reforestation (ie after harvesting operations) and new plantations," according to the EIB.
Irish MEP Luke Ming Flanagan echoed MEP Carthy's question and concerns that the forestry investments may not be "sustainable" and in accordance with environmental legislation.
EIB vice-president Andrew McDowell said that "if ever any citizen of Ireland or indeed any other member state believes any promoter that we have financed is breaking national or EU environmental laws, we have a mechanism to deal with those and we will investigate them thoroughly".
"But we don't know who it is you're funding. Who is drawing it down and where is it invested?" MEP Carthy asked.
"When we invest in a fund, our transparency obligation is obviously to reveal exactly how much we've invested in that fund," McDowell replied. "Who they invest in is the responsibility of the fund."
Co-ops' investment
European Parliament vice-president Mairead McGuinness too noted the reference on the EIB's website to Ireland's "love affair with Sikta Spruce" and said that maybe there is too much of this tree being planted as "forestry is a contentious issue".
McDowell replied that the latest investment by the EIB in Irish forestry was with SLM Silva, a fund committed to replacing such monoculture plantations leading to clearfell after 30 years with continuous cover forestry using multiple species.
Asked by MEP McGuinness if the EIB would fund groups of farmers who approached it collectively with their own projects, McDowell said: "We have already financed one or two co-operatives in Ireland and we have a number of further ones in the pipeline."
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