Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

-----and not just recently, that we only ever plant about 40% of what we have licensed. That is an issue because the resources used to generate and issue those licences are essentially going to waste. I encourage forestry companies to get in touch with their clients to try to encourage them to plant those trees because we need them planted in the ground.

Deputy Carthy referred to the Scottish Government and there are many similarities between us and Scotland but there are also dissimilarities, which is certainly the case in terms of the average size of plantations in Scotland versus Ireland. We are a percentage of what those are and we tend to have smaller plantations, each one of approximately 7 ha on average requiring an individual licence. Clearly, the streamlining of the licensing processes has to be a priority because we need a fit-for-purpose licensing system. If we are struggling to issue 4,000 licences here, we are going to struggle to try to hit our targets into the future. That has to be looked at and is why we have an independent review. Deputy Carthy can criticise reviews all he likes but they are necessary. If we did it internally within the Department, we would be criticised that the Department is doing its own review which is no good. That is why we are doing an independent review to look at the regulatory process and to see how we fit in with the environmental requirements from the EU level. I am hoping that this comes back to us and informs us about how we drive on and deliver because we have to plant.

I also indicated in my speech that we are looking at smaller-scale planting of native species only. It could be for the repairing of margins or those corners of fields. As the Deputies may or may not know, we count anything over 0.1 ha, which is about 30 m x 30 m if one was to plant a block, as requiring a licence. We only account in our forestry inventory for areas planted over 0.1 ha. One could have 100,000 plantations of less than 0.1 ha across the country and they would not count for anything. They are still trees on the ground and would offer value but we are looking to increasing that threshold so we can plant a bigger area of perhaps an acre or somewhat above the 0.1 ha level-----

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