Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

At the end of last year, when I started my role, the single greatest threat to the forestry sector was the backlog in appeals. I introduced legislation faster than some would have liked and without the pre-legislative scrutiny that some would have liked. That is the legislation to which the Deputy is referring and it has worked incredibly well. The backlogs in appeals are essentially cleared and we have a fully functioning and efficient appeals process in place that works. That was the crisis when I started.

The backlog in the ecology division, which is the current issue, has been addressed. It has clearly not been solved but we have changed it, made systems improvements and recruited increased resources. That is being dealt with, as the Deputy can see from the figures in June, notwithstanding the statutory instrument, which kicked in unbeknownst to us at the time. We expect to be back up to the June figures and beyond by the middle of August. We intend to ramp up the averages, get the licences issued as promised and hit 4,500 licences before the end of the year.