Results 4,361-4,380 of 7,789 for speaker:Michael Fitzmaurice

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: I welcome the witnesses. I agree with the Chairman on the number of licences and funnily enough in the last two weeks it has increased again but we must take what is said to us verbatim. I read Mr. Gleeson's opening statement and listened to him. He referred to the Sweetman case in 2018. Mr. Gleeson is probably aware that at the biogeographical conference in 2004, Ireland submitted 832...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: I have not got much time and will be pretty blunt with Mr. Gleeson. We were nobody down in the middle of countryside as turf cutters, yet we knew about appropriate assessment. We knew about screening out. Mr. Gleeson and his Department headed up in 2012 and it was not being done and the procedures were not put in place. This has landed us with somebody else bringing it to court. I am not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: The reality of it is there was a 15 km buffer zone in 2011 and 2012. I dealt with it at the time. Everybody knew about it at the time and unfortunately it was not dealt with. Let us move on to the next question. The monthly target for the licences that are with the ecology section has not been reached. Mr. Gleeson has talked about the number of staff he has got in. It has not been...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: The question I am asking Mr. Gleeson involves 34 and 12 licences. That is 46 licences. The Department has 27 ecologists. That is fewer than one ecologist to do one of them in a month for two months. What is wrong there?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Will Mr. Hayes clarify one point before he says too much? The Minister of State was before us in June and made us aware that there would be one month of a delay, which every Deputy here agreed to, and that was the month of July. I am looking at July and August. We were told that four weeks would be the total of the delay but the delay seemed to go on and on. What is the reason for it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Has Mr. Gleeson received - the Minister of State is supposed to have received it - a scathing letter from one of the committees in Project Woodland about how frustrated the members are getting? Are there, as we hear, people ready to resign from the Project Woodland committee system?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: In 2017, there were 1,409 applications for planting. This year to date, there are 330. What does that tell Mr. Gleeson?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Given what has gone on, would Mr. Gleeson blame them?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Would Mr. Gleeson blame them, I am asking, with the way the licences were held up?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Agreed. For example, I know a guy who has 50 acres. He put an application in. It was in two and a half years. He was sitting there waiting. All that land is now ploughed. It is now drained. It now will have 30 years of slurry. It will have 30 years of fertiliser and 30 years of cattle, with the help of God, for that person, all because of what went on within in the licensing system....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: I have two quick questions. Did Mr. Gleeson allude that 80% of all applications now have been screened in because of the environmental rules?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: When there is an application two or three years in the system, does the Department's ecologist go out to site when he or she is screening?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Have the ecologists gone out to site in the past year?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: If an application is two or three years in the system, would it mean that the ecologist would definitely have gone out to site?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: Would Mr. Gleeson feel - we would have talked to Mr. Hayes and Mr. Dunne about this previously - that the senior inspector has no choice now but to screen things? An ecologist has certain degrees or letters after his or her name that can stand up in court. Does Mr. Gleeson feel that there is a fear among his senior inspectors to screen anything out and does he fear that because of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: When the new CAP consultative committee was set up, I think, in 2019, what officials from the Forestry Service did Mr. Hayes appoint to that committee?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: The new CAP refers to getting rid of red tape in the forestry sector. It outlines the European Green Deal and all its great benefits. Why is forestry, when a forest is being assessed, always done in the negative and whether it may have an adverse effect? I understand that involves the legal side of things. What about the positive side of it being planted, which I have just outlined,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: There is a problem in that. I appreciate everything Mr. Gleeson has said. I want to finish on this point in order to let other members in. Will the Department give us a tip-off, one way or the other, on whether Coillte will have enough licences at its October market because it did not have enough last year? Mr. Gleeson spoke about talking up forestry but the reality is that forestry is a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2021)

Michael Fitzmaurice: I thank Mr. Gleeson. I will let another member in.