Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister of State good luck in her new role.

Section 7(3) of the Bill contains the commencement provision. This means that, before the Bill can have any impact, the Minister needs to make a commencement order. Sometimes, an Act is commenced all in one go, but it is quite common for an Act to be commenced on a phased basis, in other words, in dribs and drabs. A delay to the commencement of this legislation is the last thing that the industry needs at present.

The enactment would not be an end in itself, only the beginning, because a number of issues need to be addressed immediately. First, once the Bill has been enacted, the Minister needs to move immediately to bring it fully into force. Second, there needs to be a speedy appointment of appeals officers to the FAC. Third, the FAC needs to organise itself into divisions quickly. Fourth, progress on reducing the volume of appeals currently before the FAC needs to be made quickly.

Fifth, we need to see the introduction of an appeals fee under the new section 14F of the 2001 Act, as inserted by section 4 of the Bill. As everybody knows, serious fees must be applied to prevent the whole practice of misusing the appeals system.

It is quite clear that the existing appeals process has indeed been misused. There is no doubt about that, as I highlighted two weeks ago during my speaking time on Leaders' Questions. It is important that the FAC be able to function effectively. All too often, the appeals process has been used by appellants for purposes that are not directly linked to what is happening in a particular forest. The provisions in the new section 14B of the 2001 Act, as inserted by section 4 of the Bill, would introduce a requirement for an appellant to set out very clearly the grounds on which his or her appeal is based, spell out the link between the grounds of appeal being stated by the appellant and the licensing decision that is being appealed, and set out precisely what his or her interest is in making an appeal in the first instance.

My colleagues and I in the Rural Independent Group have worked diligently to set out the amendments we feel need to be made to the Bill. I hope they will be looked at in a sensible, intelligent and fair way and that they will, if at all possible, be accepted. They are brought forward on behalf of forest owners, hauliers, timber dealers, millers and the end users of forestry, who include the hardware store owners who sell timber and the builders, farmers and other people who buy it. It is totally ridiculous that at a time when we are talking about reducing our carbon footprint, we have farmers producing timber in Ireland who cannot sell it or get it to the mills and, at the same time, timber is bring brought into the country from as far away as Russia. Ireland is a country that can grow timber better, faster and quicker than it can be done elsewhere but we are importing it from Russia. It does not make any sense. I plead with the Minister to take our amendments into account.

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