Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept what the Minister of State is saying about felling licences and planting but it is not quite that simple. Some of what is being felled, such as Sitka spruce and so on, is being replaced by broadleaves, which have a longer period of growth and are not the timber sought by most of the commercial mills. As the Minister of State has noted, because of the nature of where forests tend to be in this country, most of them require ecological surveys for felling licences. Taking into account those surveys, how long does it take, on average, from when someone applies for a planting or felling licence until he or she gets the actual licence? What is the average length of time? Is that fairly steady? One of the big problems inhibiting planting is uncertainty. People are not going to do something if the process is as long as a piece of string.

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