Mr. Colm Hayes:

The Deputy has hit on the nub of the question which is that the ultimate confidence in our licensing system comes from an applicant knowing that when he or she submits a licence application, all things being equal, he or she will receive the licence within a fixed period of time. Generally speaking, the stakeholder expectation is that that period is four months or 120 days.

We are very clear that we are not at that stage yet. The average is approximately ten months at present for a licence application. As Deputy Carthy said, there is a huge range from one month to two or three years in some exceptional circumstances. It is approximately nine months at present for a road licence.

The ultimate aim of all of this Project Woodland, when you throw it all into the pot, is driving down that average. That is where the confidence comes back. It touches on Deputy Fitzmaurice's point as well. How do you encourage farmers to apply for more afforestation? It comes from them knowing that when they apply they will receive a decision - good, bad or otherwise - from us within a reliable period of time. We are not there yet but we are making significant progress. Our averages in terms of the number of months for each type of application has to be driven down and we are monitoring that extremely closely. That is the ultimate measure of performance.