Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Certainly, that is the intent. As the years will progress, we know there will be a significant volume of timber to come onto the market. We have to match our licensing capabilities with that to be able to deliver that. We sometimes hear the discussion of Coillte felling licences versus the private side. As a note for this year, Coillte tends to submit its felling licences in batches, whereas private individuals submit them daily, one or two at a time, perhaps. In March Coillte submitted more than 1,800 applications and in November a further 430 applications were received. Those were the two batches. Private felling licences are submitted daily, but on the breakdown of the total licences that have been issued to the year to date, 1,200 private licences have been issued versus 1,378 licences to Coillte, which is a 47%-53% split.

Bearing in mind that Coillte is the largest supplier of timber to our sawmill sector, I think there is a little bit of fairness there in terms of the number of licences.

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