Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In June last year, the Department presented its plan for processing forestry licences, laying out the key performance indicators that it would achieve from June 2020 into early 2021. A major focus of that was the extra staff it would hire. We are now seven months into the plan. Why are we only hitting 46% of the targets for private licences when it keeps telling us about its additional resources? Meanwhile, 60% of felling licences were issued to Coillte. While it maintains it wants to enable the delivery of higher output, should it not rethink its approach and bring more equality to the situation of the private operators?

When we talk about felling licences, is it not the case that there was a lower number of felling applications in 2020 than in previous years? In 2017, there were 3,300; 2018, 5,900; 2019, 3,300; and 2020, 1,700. There is poor performance even with the lower application numbers and the increased staff. Can the Department account for that? Who has overall responsibility for the targets it has set?

On the presentation of data we keep getting, the volume system is completely misleading as the Department is also double-counting the volume. Following the commencement of the Forestry Act 2014, forestry owners are able to apply for multiple harvest events on the same forest plot in a felling licence application. However, when this information is being reported in the tables provided, any area that has been applied for thinning and clearfell has been included in each column. For example, if a 10 ha block is applied for thinning in 2020 and clearfell in 2025, those 10 ha will be registered as 10 ha in the thinning column, 10 ha in the clearfell column and 20 ha in the total column. A 10 ha licence application is presented by the Department as a 20 ha official license area.

When a farmer is forced into an unthin management system due to delays getting either a forest road or a felling licence from the Department, it means that farmer has no income for their forest until clearfell. The earnings from the timber crop will be reduced by 10,000 per hectare. Is the Department going to compensate farmers for the loss of earnings incurred?

Why, when the committee asked for a total number of licences backlog, was the Department selective in the figures it produced and referenced only those in ecology?

I have a couple of quick observations on ash dieback. Under the reconstitution and underplanting scheme, RUS, applicants must now get planning permission from the county council where a landowner wishes to replace their diseased ash crop. Under the previous scheme, any replacement conifers up to 10 ha did not require planning permission. Under SI 45 of 2020, the replacement of any area of broadleaf forests with conifer species requires an application to the local authority and its approval before works can commence. Could the Department not be the single consenting authority? There needs to be an urgent amendment to the legislation to rectify that issue and to speed it up. From talking to different organisations and stakeholders, the RUS in its current form is drafted in a way that ignores the fact all ash trees will eventually succumb to the disease. This is apparent in the aid given under the scheme. For example, if a forest has 10% infection, then 10% of the aid is all the owner can avail of. These are suggestions coming from the stakeholders.

Could it be that the answer is reform of the reconstitution and underplanting scheme by: grant aid for 100% clearfell of all ash plantations; grand aid for the replanting of a new crop; doubling the premium period from 15 to 30 years on all replanted sites; offering compensation to the value of the crop at the time of the clearfell; and offering the option not to replant? The Department officials may wish to give us a written reply on the dieback questions but I will take a reply on the other matters now.