Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, to the House. It is a great honour to see one of our colleagues elevated to the role of Minister of State and it is great to have her here.

There is no doubt that there is a crisis in forestry licences and there is an impact due to delays. I am cognisant of the delays and the impact these have on individuals. Forestry in Ireland, including the sawmilling industry is in crisis because the forestry service is simply not able to process licences for applications to plant or fell trees. We are aware of the impact this crisis is having on rural jobs in planting and forestry maintenance, for forestry harvesting contractors, for haulage contractors and for sawmilling. There are no pallets for exporting goods and there is a shortage of timber on shelves in hardware stores, in construction, in DIY and for fencing. We are under no illusion that there is a crisis and it needs to be dealt with.

We know that the problem is caused by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine not being able to process the licence applications to plant or fell. I will outline some timelines for some of the delays currently in the system. One application has been in the system for 713 days, another has been in the system for 520 days, while another has been in the system for 535 days. As of last week more than 30 licensee applications have been in the system for more than 350 days. This is absolute madness.

We recognise the serious need for the Bill, but as outlined on this side of the House, there are some concerns. One of my concerns is the rushed process for the Bill. We have been told that this is emergency legislation and that it must be done immediately. Members only caught sight of the Bill last night, officially, or, technically, this morning. This is less than 24 hours in which to analyse the Bill and turn around amendments. It was not so long ago since the Leader of the House gave Members her solemn word in the House that this would not happen again. It is very frustrating that we are here again in this situation.

It is also very frustrating that today in the Dáil Chamber the Labour Party has brought forward a Bill on sick leave for all. We have been told by the Minister of State's own Government that that Bill must be kicked to touch for six months. Sick pay is an absolute emergency during a global pandemic. While I do not conflate the two and say one issue is more important than the other, we have now been told that we must rush this Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2020 through the Seanad because workers' jobs are at risk. I put it to the Minister of State that those very same workers may need to avail of sick pay in the next six months but there does not seem to be the same level of concern on the Government side for that. Forgive me for being exasperated by what is and is not considered an emergency, especially in this House.

I am concerned about Committee and Report Stages happening together. This legislation is being rushed through the House and the Minister of State's goal is to have it through the Dáil by the end of next week. This is a two-week speed run at this Bill. In my short time as a Senator I have watched this Government rush through a judicial reform Bill, cancel at the very last minute an important debate on the needs of those in higher education, and now, with the very first piece of environmental legislation, giving Senators barely 12 hours between the official publication of the Bill and the submission deadline for amendments. It feels perhaps that it has been decided the contributions we in this House make on the issue are not actually worthy of a substantive debate.

I am particularly disappointed at this attitude coming first and foremost from a fellow Senator. I believe that all Senators felt a lot of pride when the Senator was elevated to Government. It was a sign that the work of the House and its Members are valued by Government.To have this rushed through, to deny the Minister of State’s fellow Senators the chance to contribute on this legislation, and to give us not even more than 24 hours to read the Bill before we submit amendments seems a pretty poor standard. I hope this is not how the Green Party in government feels about others from different political persuasions and our contribution to environmental legislation.

I want to reflect on the public consultation, and again other Opposition Members have reflected on this. Over the summer, there was a one-month public consultation, which is a short time by the standards of any public consultation. Therefore, I have to commend the fact it got just shy of 9,000 responses, with 8,888 the golden number, I believe. This is a large number, no doubt, and shows deep concern and engagement on this issue. However, as has been referenced, thus far we have only received a report on the consultation process, a report which, by the way, we only received this morning, so we have had less than 24 hours, which is a tiny timeframe, to look at the Bill, analyse the report and come back with amendments.

If I wanted access to any individual submissions, I could contact the Minister of State's office and ask for a submission, but that is like looking for a needle in a haystack because I do not know what I am looking for as I have no idea who made the submissions. While the gesture was appreciated, it was not particularly helpful seeing as, without an index, I could not know who or what had made a submission. I am relatively digitally literate so I researched the submissions based on who had posted submissions online, and other Senators shared submissions which they got their hands on, but it is not an especially effective way to do business that we creep around and see what we can find out ourselves online based on who shouted the loudest about putting in submissions. It is worrying that the public consultation submissions have not been made available online during this two-week period. I know this is a tight timeframe in which to get things done, and the Minister of State was landed with a very short period in which to do this. However, it does not seem the best way to do business and it is exasperating we do not have access to that and that it is likely we will not have access before this Bill finishes its journey in the two Houses.

It is not all criticism. I welcome the removal of the relevant persons section in the legislation to allow third-party appeals. I know the potential exclusion of third parties to appeal directly to the forestry appeals committee caused an enormous amount of consternation and fuss online. It was seen as exclusionary and against basic democratic principles given people ought to be able to engage in an appeals process in an area that affects them. I welcome the removal of the relevant persons section as it is vital we do not hinder the ability of invested and interested citizens to participate actively in planning decisions relating to the environment.

I also want to reflect on the alignment with the planning process. Senator Lynn Boylan went through this extremely eloquently and I am a bit more muddled on it. The heads of the Bill outlined that this Bill is intended to provide an Act to amend the Agricultural Appeals Act 2001 and to align the forestry licensing and appeals process with a similar planning process. To paraphrase An Taisce’s words, the disparity between the planning system and the existing forestry system is like day and night. The planning system in Ireland has a highly integrated framework stemming from a national planning framework, an implementation plan, regional planning guidelines and spatial strategies, and all of these inform our county development plans, zoning policies, objectives, local area plans and, ultimately, even individual applications for development. For example, we are currently trawling through the county development plan in County Meath, and obviously things have gone a bit askew with the Covid process. Nonetheless, there is an enormous amount of legislation, bodies of work and things we have to follow through. The whole system is complemented by comprehensive legislation and there is oversight from an independent appeals body, An Bord Pleanála, whose decisions and remit are meticulously set out in legislation and which, as has been referenced, is an entirely independent body. The public also has easy access to the planning documentation and decisions throughout this process.

This is in stark contrast to the forestry system, where there is one national programme, with no regional or local strategies for afforestation or felling. Information is also incredibly difficult to access for a member of the public. I concur with Senator Boylan’s statements around the 28 days and the impact this is going to have on members of the public being able to access information in a timely fashion and how they will be able to do that.

It seems to me the alignment provided by the heads of Bill just aligns with being able to pay fees to make an appeal and the requirement to have made a submission on the application to be able to appeal it. I have a concern that if fees are introduced for forestry appeals committee appeals, as is currently required within the planning process, this could take legitimate appeals out of the hands and financial means of most individuals.The Aarhus Convention has been mentioned here before. According to Article 9.4, administrative and judicial procedures relating to the environment should not be prohibitively expensive. I would like to know exactly how much these fees are going to cost. If someone is appealing against a number of different licences, how are these fees going to stack up and how is that going to impact individuals making appeals? There is a brief reference in the Bill suggesting that fees can be remunerated. I would go further and suggest that fees should absolutely be remunerated. We will be proposing an amendment to allow for this. At a minimum, fees should be remunerated if there simply has to be a fee system.

We welcome the effort to support jobs and deal with the chaos and backlog that the Minister of State has unfortunately inherited within this system. However, we have an issue with the process. A 24-hour turnaround time on a Bill, while it seems to be the standard way we do things in the Seanad, is not best legislative process. In one House, the Government is saying sick pay for all is not a priority during a global pandemic and it is going to kick that to touch for six months. However, it is going to push this Bill through because it says it wants to be able to support workers. We also need to make sure that those workers have access to sick pay over those six months.

I welcome that the Minister of State has taken on board feedback from the consultation even if none of us has seen the submissions. That engagement is positive but I hope it does not become standard that we do not have access to the submissions. As I said, the Labour Party will be submitting amendments to the Bill, specifically in respect of the remuneration of fees if the appeals are not seen as frivolous or vexatious. We will engage constructively with this Bill and will engage with the Minister of State on any upcoming Bills in respect of forestry. We recognise the deep importance of forestry in Ireland for our biodiversity, carbon, agriculture and all of those issues. We look forward to working with the Minister of State in the future on this.