Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the work the Minister and his Department are doing to try to resolve these issues. We need to be very clear on the appeals process as well. There has to be a time limit on the appeals. I know that, as the Minister mentioned, the hope is to tie in the licensing process with the planning process. At the moment there is no clear guidance on how long an appeal will take if an objection is made to a licence. That has to go through the appeals process. We need clear guidance in the legislation the Minister is contemplating publishing this weekend as to time limit. If a decision made by the Department is being appealed by a third party it should then go to the independent appeals board to be heard. That has to take place. It should be very clearly enshrined in the legislation that it should take place within a month or six weeks of the application.

There are people who were looking to plant trees in the spring of this year on the books. The time has elapsed and planting is not justifiable during the summer months. The Minister must be very clear in the legislation that there is a month or a six-week timeframe to ensure an appeal is heard in a timely fashion. A point that has been made by the company that has been in contact with me is the lack of ecologists. The Minister must get ecologists into his Department and get the backlog cleared. The applications currently there need to be assessed and then at least a proper decision will be made to grant the application. There needs to be recruitment by the Minister's Department to ensure that takes place as quickly as possible.

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