Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to make an intervention. I welcome the Minister of State and her statement. I concur with other speakers on the lack of reference to the Mackinnon report. However, I acknowledge the Minister of State has held up the report and recommended we all read it. I have read it, and it makes interesting findings and recommendations. The report states that in 2019 almost half the applications took more than 99 days to decide. It states also that "concerns that bureaucracy and regulation has taken precedence over enabling woodland expansion", that "strong concerns were expressed about the performance of the Department and the quality of customer service" and that "KPIs need to be developed essentially around timescales for decision making". I welcome the fact the Minister of State has put in place a project management board and that 16 full-time equivalent ecologists and ten additional forestry inspectors were appointed. That is a move in the right direction. The Minister of State is going to initiate the forestry policy group and has hinted that Ms Jo O'Hara will be announced as the person appointed to oversee the implementation of the Mackinnon report.

Will there be a possibility for the forestry policy group to interact with the project management group and the chair of the implementation group in a seamless way? This would impact cases such as those highlighted at today's meeting, where there is an undue length of time or obstacles are put in the way of a seamless process. Will there be a mechanism to enable the triumvirate of Mackinnon, the project management board and the forestry policy group to deal with every issue that arises, and that a process will be put in place to take seriously the issues we heard about today in order that there will be a result? We must be output driven and must see results. That is the only question I have today.