Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. While everything is not perfect, there have been improvements to which my colleague, Mr. Collins, has alluded. Many of those improvements have been conducted in parallel with Project Woodland. We have not waited for anything to come from the project before those improvements take place and they have taken place over the past number of months in terms of improving how we deal with appropriate assessments and engage with the foresters and go back to them to improve licence applications. There has been a lot of work done in conjunction with increased resources in terms of ecology, forestry inspectors and so forth. There have been improvements. We are not in the same situation we were this time last year when we had a logjam in the appeals process. The appeals process was dealt with swiftly and succinctly through the legislation. As I said earlier, that happened quicker than many people would have liked. We took action to deal with the problems in the appeals process. That has dramatically improved the appeals process and made it more efficient. We do not have an issue with a backlog in appeals anymore so that is an improvement.

My forestry policy group includes four or five grower representatives. We engage with the growing organisations from across the country and, indeed, with forestry growers who are a part of the Irish Farmers Association. That engagement is ongoing and there are representatives on my working groups as part of Project Woodland. There is constant engagement with those groups.