Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government is very aware that there are serious issues with the licensing of forestry operations that are having a negative impact on the sector. This is as a result of necessary changes to the appropriate assessment procedure due to the European Court of Justice and Irish rulings relating to the protection of Natura sites. We are dealing with these issues robustly and a number of urgent steps have been taken to resolve them. These include the implementation of the Mackinnon report, which is well underway through Project Woodland. The project board and working groups have been meeting regularly since early March while a project manager and a business analyst have also been engaged. There is significant investment in resources with more ecologists, forestry inspectors and additional administrative staff assigned to licensing. We saw improvements in licensing output during the first half of this year. June was the highest month to date. Over 1,770 licences have been issued so far this year. This is a 29% increase on the same period last year. While accepting that significant further gains are needed, we are at last moving in the right direction. The average output for the past seven weeks alone is 95 licences per week with farmers being the largest beneficiaries of this receiving 75% of licences. The Department received just over 3,000 applications to date this year. This includes a batch application for 1,800 new applications from Coillte to cover its output for the next two years.

Of course, licence output is only one measure of performance. The more realistic metric is the volume of material licensed, which is what really matters to the sector. In this regard, felling volumes are 77% higher than at the same point last year, the area for afforestation is 19% higher, roads licensed are 121%, Coillte's 2021 felling programme is fully licensed and it is working with the Department to ensure the availability of this supply to the market.

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