Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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534. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if a felling licence will be issued for a person (details supplied) [17182/20]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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An application for a tree felling licence was received from the person named in July 2019. The proposed tree felling is within the 15km zone of impact for six designated sites, including the Blackwater River SAC, which is protected for freshwater pearl mussel. The potential impacts of the tree felling operations on these sites cannot be excluded. For this reason, the application was referred to my Department’s Ecology Unit for their assessment.

There are currently delays to issuing decisions on forestry licence applications, which are as a result of the changes made to internal Appropriate Assessment Procedures (AAP). These were introduced in response to important Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decisions and their subsequent interpretation by the FAC and others. These findings meant that in order to grant licences which fully meet environmental requirements, fundamental changes to the licensing system were unavoidable.

My Department has a detailed project plan in place for dealing with the current backlog and new applications, which includes significant investment in extra resources required to deliver the plan. These resources are a combination of additional ecologists, forestry inspectors and administrative staff where required.

One aspect of this plan is prioritising applications where the applicant has submitted a Natura Impact Statement (NIS). It is open to the person named to submit a NIS, which must be prepared by a suitably qualified person, as their own expense. If the applicant decides to provide a NIS, my Department will issue guidance, which will indicate on what areas the NIS must focus.