Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and thank her for her presentation. I wish her the best of luck in her post. The Mackinnon report suggested that the Government has not shown any great interest in forestry. The programme for Government is heavy on environmental and climate change objectives but there is a lack of attention being given to the commercial aspect of forestry. Is there a reason for that being left out? The Minister of State also referred to the programme for Government target of 8,000 ha as aspirational, when it should be achievable if the system was operating efficiently.

In terms of the financial cost of the Natura impact statement, NIS, and the need to apply for licences, is it not possible that tree felling, afforestation and roads could all come under one licence?

I have a question for Mr. Hayes on an issue Deputy Fitzmaurice raised earlier. Could he tell us the specific number of applications that are currently in the backlog? I find it very strange that he has come to a meeting of the committee saying he does not know where the figures are that were sought by Deputy Fitzmaurice. They are on the monthly reports of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's forestry division. The current backlog is 2,056 for tree felling licences, as was stated. That equates to 7.1 million tonnes of timber, which is two years' worth of production. It would also mean that the backlog is higher than the widely publicised 2,500. The backlog for afforestation licences is 1,122, which equates to 9,400 ha. The backlog for applications for forest roads is 738, which equates to 302 km. The Department keeps telling us about 2019 figures and claps itself on the back because we are reaching quotas. If one goes back three years, 6,500 licences were issued. At this stage in 2020, the Department is only doing half what it did previously.

I have been contacted by various stakeholders in the sector and they said the inspectors are referring 80% to 90% of the applications to the ecology section, even the native woodland applications. Does that mean too many NIS reports are being requested? I have also been told that the ecology section in particular is slow. In one case, the NIS was submitted in April and nothing has yet been heard back. Could Mr. Hayes outline the problem within the ecology section, the number of staff processing the reports and how many additional staff are in place? I will leave it at that. Ash dieback was covered before.