Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State should provide empirical evidence to back up her arguments. It would be short-sighted, without that evidence, to in any way short-circuit, limit or narrow the basis upon which people can, for good reason, object to or appeal licence decisions. According to my source, the Department's ability to make decisions has dropped off because it was found that the method of appealing licences was not in compliance with EU law. That is actually what has happened. Compliance has required a considerable slowing up of the process. We have a dysfunctional forestry model and the EU has found us out. As a result, we have had to put a hell of a lot more resources into processing licence applications and that is what is slowing the process down. What do we do about that? It seems that we have to comply and we need to put the resources into complying with a sustainable forestry model while also clearing the backlogs and so on. We must do so in a way that is not environmentally damaging or in breach of environmental directives, laws and obligations.

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