Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have got to grips with our forestry sector. Massive work has gone into it over the past couple of years. As the Deputy knows, the outcome of a court case in 2019 radically changed the way each licence had to be assessed. This led to a big backlog in licence applications but we have now worked our way through that. Anybody applying for a forestry licence today will receive it within six months if it does not require an impact assessment or within nine months if such an assessment is needed. We have dealt with that and the system is now very close to equilibrium. We have also introduced a new forestry scheme which has increased the premiums available to farmers on an annual basis by up to 66%. We have also increased the number of years that a farm family can avail of premiums from 15 to 20. We have put massive resources and investment into forestry and have also put significant funding into tillage. We have invested heavily in ACRES which is why we are seeing such a strong uptake.

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