Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a reduction of 300 since November. The Minister mentioned a number of times that the take-up rate for afforestation licences, that is, the actual implementation from receiving a licence to planting, is approximately 60%. It appears to be spectacularly low in that people go to the effort of securing a licence, and the afforestation process is not an easy one to go through, but then do not actually fulfil it. I previously asked both the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Hackett, whether there had been an engagement with those 40% or so who are applying for licences but are not seeing it through in order to identify the particular gaps that bring them to a point. These are people who have received licences. It would dramatically improve the figures if we could move them from having a licence in the drawer to trees in the ground. It would make everybody's life much easier, not just now, but in decades to come. Has a particular piece of work been done in respect of that cohort?