Mr. Patrick Bruton:

Some 23,000 farmers have committed their most valuable asset, their land, to forestry, based on Government policy and incentives since the late 1980s. These are mainly first-generation forest owners. Many of these pioneers would now strongly discourage any farmer from engaging in forestry, due to the licensing scandal.

Our taxpayers have invested almost €3 billion in private forestry over the past 30 years. The Department, through hyper-regulation, poor policy and even poorer management are squandering this taxpayer investment and wasting the opportunity created by members' political predecessors. The opportunity is crystal clear in the most recent all-Ireland roundwood production forecast from the National Council for Forest Research and Development, COFORD, covering the period 2021 to 2040. The report shows the volume available from the private sector, mainly farmers in many parishes all over rural Ireland, increasing from 1.7 million cu. m this year to 3.5 million cu. m in 2030, ultimately peaking at 4.4 million cu. m per annum in 2035. This opportunity should be resulting in more jobs, increased economic activity and environmental benefit all over rural Ireland. The opportunity is being squandered because the Department has proven to be inept and remains incapable of issuing the licences that are legally required to permit the management and harvesting of this timber. I am certain the taxpayers of Ireland, members' political predecessors and the owners of these forests never foresaw a situation whereby their vision would be wasted by the Department in the scandalous manner we have witnessed over the past three years and continue to witness.

The same Department published a licensing plan earlier this year. Based on the dashboard at the end of quarter 1, we can measure how the Department has performed. Coillte, the semi-State forestry company with a balance sheet of €1.36 billion has been issued with 457 felling licences, which is 97 more than the projections issued by the Department in its plan. The private sector, mainly farmers, have been issued with 357 felling licences, which is 102 fewer than Coillte and 65 fewer than the projections issued by the Department in its plan. We in SEEFA have no confidence in the Department recovering this deficit throughout the remainder of 2022. To add insult to injury, in week one of April 2022, the Department issued 58 felling licences to Coillte and just 18 to the private sector. The rot continues and the inequity is apparent to everyone. The Department licensing plan in the case of felling licences to the private sector has not even survived the first quarter of this year. I ask members to not accept any answers that the differences I have outlined are due to weekly fluctuations, because the facts are obvious in the weekly dashboard.

We have forest owners with licences submitted to the Department for more than two years and need to harvest their crops to put children through college, to meet bills, to pay debts and to help with home construction for children. The obvious question needs to be asked as to why the Department, an organ of the State, is ahead of target in processing licences for another organ of the State, Coillte, while leaving private forest owners all over this country on the sideline and largely ignored. It may answer it is related to the quality of applications received from the private sector. As representatives of the private sector, we refute this completely. We have serious questions as to whether the felling licence applications from Coillte are put through the exact same process, procedure and interrogation as those which the private sector licences are subjected to by the Department. Specifically in terms of private timber, which I am addressing, can no longer be about what the Department can deliver; it has to be about what the private sector needs and the Department must deliver. Nothing else is acceptable. We know we need a minimum of 2,500 felling licences and a minimum of 700 road licences each year for the foreseeable future to mobilise the private timber.

There was a windblow event in Scotland in November last year followed by a run of smaller storms since then. In accepting Scotland is no longer in the EU, its regulators must still abide by regulations. Felling licences are also required in Scotland. The regulators received felling licence applications for 7,252 ha of woodland. Around 90% of all the felling permissions have been approved, with each felling permission taking an average time of 16 days to approve. This is a real case of the regulators responding to the needs of the sector.

The non-performance and failure of our Department has resulted in real damaged confidence in the forest sector, from growers to end users. Do members think a significant change needs to happen to try to regain that lost confidence? Do they want to see the new rural-based jobs this increased timber availability can create in their local areas? These direct and indirect jobs can be drivers, mechanics, carpenters, accountants, foresters or ecologists and I could go on.

This is all here and ready to go. Unfortunately, I am confident that we will not take this opportunity with the current management and situation. We will not harvest the almost 25 million cu. m available in the private sector between now and 2030 if we do not face up, recognise the elephant in the room and deal with it.