Results 101-120 of 766 for speaker:Pippa Hackett

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: No, I do not think so, or at least not based on the projections. They are going to keep going up. The output every year is going to go up and up until 2040 and then maybe there will be a drop-off, potentially.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: That seems to be the legal advice, yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: In relation to ash dieback, roadside ash is referenced in the report, although it was somewhat outside its scope. The main focus was on plantation ash but I agree that roadside ash is an important issue. It is probably cross-departmental in nature, rather than just an issue for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, where the ash dieback scheme for plantations lies. I have had...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: Yes, absolutely. It is an issue already. I have met many people who have been taking their own trees down but there is a challenge with that. I agree that we need to look at it. I agree with what the Senator said about bark beetle. We are very conscious of the challenges that will exist with that. We have applied the most stringent biosecurity measures in relation to it. We only...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: Yes, that was it. On the books, if you like, at the moment, we have approximately 700 unused afforestation licences from the previous programme. We have written to all of those licence holders to see if they are interested in continuing with the new programme rates. We also have 440 that have been sitting in the system since December. We could not approve those applications but we went...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: For those 700 applicants, the total is approximately 5,500 ha. For the 450, the total is roughly 3,900 ha. That amounts to over 10,000 ha. The majority in the system, between those two figures, have opted in. It bodes well that people are still interested in planting trees. I would like to think that this new programme has-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: A cohort had licences.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: A cohort is in the system and ready to approve, subject to the new rules. They are the ones we were talking about, and some 3% will not be granted licences because, for example, they are too close to curlew nests. Some 24% of those are good to go. Those licences will be issued in the next couple of weeks.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: I think so. Those would have just come in. They are new licences. Those people have opted in, which is welcome. Land availability is a challenge. The Senator is right that the challenges that exist now probably were not there previously. It is an issue across the board for agriculture and forestry. I am not sure what the solution is but we need to look at the situation in some way. We...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: Approximately 16,000 ha are affected. They vary in size. Some 90% of sites are less than 3 ha.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: My understanding, and Mr. Delany can correct me if I am wrong, is that this is not a similar process. It will not be an over-and-back process. It will be up to us to identify a mechanism that we have not identified up to now with the potential to support farmers with finances in this situation. We would then go to the European Union and tell its representatives that we have found a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: It is strictly native trees. It is very much aimed at small-scale planting. I do not know if the Senator recalls the debates on this issue in the Seanad. A higher bar has to be passed because we are not putting it through the rigorous process of the licensing review. There will be certain areas of the country that will be told "No" straight away. Farmers and foresters will find that out...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: I would like to think that a lot of this would not be clear-felled. It is going to be native woodland and will be there for many generations and decades to come.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: That is available in the details of the application process.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: To be honest, it is hard to speculate. We just opened the new programme. It depends on what comes through that and what is sitting there and ready to plant. There are licences in the system at the moment. There is going to be quite positive engagement with the 1 ha scheme. Every hectare counts at this rate. Several thousand farmers choosing to plant 1 ha would mean several thousand...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: I would like to think it would be more than that. I like to think it would be between 5,000 ha and 8,000 ha. The Senator might say I am speculating wildly but we have to aim high as we put the programme in place. We have had engagement with farmers on the ground. I have spoken with Teagasc and my own Department. At the National Ploughing Championships, there was a lot of interest. As I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: I do not have that figure but what I know is that we export 90% of what we produce. We are well in the field of being self-sufficient for our own. COFORD may have done some work and come up with some projections. I can check the figures. I do not think we have a problem; we will just end up using more here and not exporting more. We are well-serviced in the amount of timber that will be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: Anything that is felled today gets replanted in the next number of months. The replanting keeps the constant supply at a certain level, so what is planted today will be there in 2050.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: We have put a lot of work into our systems over the last couple of years. We have forestry licence viewers and a lot of engagement. Mr. Delany might want to add more detail.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Ireland's Forestry Programme and Strategy: Discussion (4 Oct 2023)

Pippa Hackett: I thank Deputy Mythen. First, it was not the system that was at fault. The challenges that came about with the licensing came about because of EU challenges on how we were issuing licences. We had to completely and fundamentally change how we evaluated licences, hence the backlog came. The system at the time maybe did not deliver but we had to change that, and that was a massive challenge...