Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, to the House today. I am delighted to be here in the Seanad Chamber for the first time.

The Bill is, ultimately, about jobs and I will support it. It might not be too welcome to the Green Party but it will certainly get support from the Minister of State's Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green Party colleagues. That is the price one must pay when in government as a smaller party.

This industry provides 12,000 jobs throughout rural communities, including those in my part of the country. I will not namecheck the various businesses around the country which have been in contact with me with regard to supporting the Bill today. It is all about jobs and how we are going to maintain and sustain these jobs going forward in this crisis.

The current crisis around licensing is crippling the industry. It is important that we deal with this matter here today. Data from the forestry appeals committee show that licences are being appealed at a rate of 40 to 50 per month. Some 1,500 licence applications are with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Officials process nearly 100 applications per month, which means it takes close to 15 months to clear the queue, even if no other applications are made and before any appeals are submitted.Some of the owners of Ireland's sawmills describe being at a crisis point where they are struggling to know how they will retain their employees with their customers. This Bill will give them safety. Anyone in the State can appeal any forestry licence. It costs nothing to appeal and it is relatively straightforward to do so, so I welcome the charge and the change to that in the Bill. A recent analysis by the Business Post showed that one particular gentleman, a prominent environmentalist, had been involved in more than half of the appeals made against forestry licences in the past two and a half years. The appeals list from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine names him 351 times out of 624 appeals submitted in that period. This cannot continue. It has to stop. It is stalling progress and stopping our economy moving forward. This is a completely overlooked sector which is contributing to our economy. It is critical that this Bill is passed as quickly as possible and that it is implemented in full.