The whole ash dieback debacle has received a lot of press coverage in recent years. Scarcely a week goes by without yet another letter concerning the matter being published in this newspaper. And without a doubt the Government could have handled the issue much better.

Though the same is true of many issues like, for example, the pyrite problem. Governments tend to take issues more seriously when there are a lot of potential votes involved. In the scheme of things, there are not a lot of people directly affected by the ash disease so it was never going to be a high priority for the Government of the day.

But the late Minister of State, Shane McEntee, put a lot of work into the problem in its early days back in 2012. Too little too late? Of course, but it’s very easy looking back. And we are probably making the same mistake again with fire blight on imported hawthorn quicks.

Tree planting has now to be encouraged big time and undoubtedly landowners are put off by this messy ash dieback business (and that’s without even mentioning the Forest Service). Confidence needs to be restored in this very important sector and quickly.

I know some people won’t agree with this, but I do think the two Government ministers, McConalogue and Hackett, have tried to compensate ash plantation owners. Yes, it’s not perfect and more could be done but they are genuine steps in the right direction. But with a few tweaks it could put the matter to bed once and for all. More on that in a minute.

And it has to be said that it’s not only ash plantation owners who have lost out to this devastating disease. Every person who lives and loves the Irish countryside has lost out. The countryside is being denuded of its most common (and typically the most majestic) hedgerow tree and, in many cases, there is nothing else that will replace it to anything like the same degree.

Our rural roads and byways are already looking barren and forlorn and characterless where the merciless disease has taken its toll. I would encourage landowners to replant hedgerows with another hardwood. Oak is easy to establish and safe with a tree guard.

So as I watch our last 6ha of pure ash woodland currently being felled, it is with mixed emotions. I see 25-year-old leafless trees with a busty basal diameter of 360mm crashing to the ground and the harvester spits out 12 metres of perfectly straight timber. But the heartwood shows the telltale brown staining of the terminal disease and it’s relegated to firewood. What superb giants of trees they would have been in 40 years’ time if they hadn’t fallen to this cancer.

We applied for the Reconstitution and Underplanting Scheme (RUS) over two years ago and were accepted in the past few months. The name has changed, it’s now called RADS – Reconstitution Ash Dieback Scheme - which pays a felling grant and a compensatory sum over five years. Both of these are welcome but as our ash is 25 years old, we will have timber sales well in excess of our harvesting costs.

In this regard we are certainly more fortunate than some and it is closure for me on the whole sorry saga. Replanting is obviously a condition of the scheme and we will replant with mixed hardwoods and Sitka spruce. I’m happy to replant and go again.

But I do think the Government should pay the annual premium (as they did for the first 20 years on the ash) on the replanted area to tide me over into retirement. Not least because my ash pension fund is now gone and I’ll have that bit of compensation and firewood money all spent before this hungry year is out.