Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not need to welcome the Minister of State because this is her House. I thank her for coming to address this issue. The focus of my Commencement matter today, and hopefully the Minister of State will deal with all this, is the need to confirm the number of forestry planting licences that have been granted since 1 January 2023. Can she confirm that Ireland has formally submitted its completed - with the emphasis on completed - application for state aid approval with the European Commission, and that the Commission has no outstanding issues regarding this application?

I do not doubt the Minister of State's personal commitment to agriculture, forestry, horticulture or any of that. She very often uses the slogan about planting the right tree in the right place. I accept all of that. The reality today, and I will make one prediction, is that the target for planting 8,000 ha of new forestry this year and every year certainly will not happen this year, and I will tell the Minister of State why. There is a failure to hit the planning targets. It threatens the future supplies of our timber. The Minister of State and I both know that. If we do not deliver on our targets, there will, of course, be implications in terms of our climate targets and aspirations and ambitions, which have been rightly set high. There is a frustration among foresters and farmers about the delays in the €1.3 million state aid plan that was unveiled by the Minister of State and Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue. They are ambitious plans and I welcome the forestry plans.

Forest Industries Ireland director Mr. Mark McAuley today in The Irish Times"warned that virtually no trees would be planted in the Republic until next ... [winter] as a consequence of the promised Government supports that have ... [not materialised]." As the Minister of State knows, we cannot plant trees in the summer. It is simply too dry; it does not happen. Yes, we might get up until May but historically it does not really go beyond that. That is a challenge in itself. When was the necessary paperwork completed and lodged with the EU for consideration of the approval for the Government scheme? The Minister of State and members of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, myself included, have had much engagement on all this. They have not been easy debates and discussions. We might listen to IBEC, which has affiliated forestry groups. It said the Republic has barely reached one quarter of what the figures are expected to be. It is blaming licensing delays on the bureaucracy of Departments in all of this. I would be interested to hear the Minister of State's response to that.

I welcome the Government's decision to increase the planting of native species, which is important. I know some people in the forestry sector have an issue with that; I do not. It is important that we have our percentage. The Minister of State has set the targets for that and rightly so. They are important. When looking at the latest dashboard with which the Minister of State will be very familiar, we can see that zero afforestation licences have been issued. There have only been 5 km of road licences and the lowest volume of felling licences for 2023. That is the reality of it. What is the issue? I hope the Minister of State will elaborate on that.

I looked at figures this morning that were issued by the Central Statistics Office, CSO, under the title of who is planting the new forests. Back in 2010, which was a peak for us, 7,929 farmers planted forests over an area that covered 8,314 ha. That is interesting because that is sort of the target we are on now. Back in 2010, based on the CSO figures, we had 7,929 farmers planting 8,314 ha. That is an enormous number of hectares. When we move to 2021, the most recent figures from the CSO tell us that we have a drop from 7,929 farmers down to 360. The figure was 360 in 2021 and, of course, we see the coverage there was 2,016 ha. The Government's target is 8,000 ha. We are a hell of a long way short of all of that. I look forward to the Minister of State's response.