Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday afternoon I met representatives of the Social, Economic, Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland, members of which I also met earlier outside the gates of Leinster House. The forestry issue in Ireland is one that we need to address immediately. Over the past two years, we have had discussions on forestry in this House and at the agriculture committee. We have seen changes in legislation with regard to the serial objection issue and with regard to environmental issues but there is a huge issue in terms of licences. At the moment, the ambition in terms of licence production for this year is 4,500, which is exceptionally low, but we will not reach it. According to the industry, we need to be producing 8,000 licences per annum.

That Ireland of all places is importing raw timber to keep its timber mills going is disgraceful. This has the potential for us to bring in pests such as beetles, which could have a huge impact on our forestry in the future; the biosecurity measures are not good enough. This could have a huge impact on our industry in the future as a legacy. We need to have an urgent debate but we also need legislation to be brought forward with urgency. There are no timelines when it comes to a forestry licence. When you apply for a planning permission, you get a timeline through a local authority, which is usually eight weeks. You then submit further information and the whole matter can be sorted out within six months. There is no fixed timeline with regard to forestry licence applications. Some applications have been ongoing for almost four years. Could one imagine any business waiting four years for information as to when it might be granted a licence? We are in a time lag. Unless we get our act together, the real issues of carbon and climate action cannot be addressed. We have a decade to make sure we get our forestry services up and running and have trees growing in the ground. Only 30% of our afforestation targets for this year have been met. People are not planting trees because they have no confidence in a system that provides no timelines.

I propose that the Deputy Leader would ask the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Senator Hackett, who is a Member of this House, to come to this House to discuss the introduction of legislation to put fixed timelines in place so that the industry has a chance. If we do not do that, we will have no forestry industry and we will not reach our climate targets.