Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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784. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of additional staff or whole-time equivalents who have been sanctioned for the purposes of supporting the forest service and forestry appeals process. [28366/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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A number of additional staff have been appointed to improve the processing of licences by my Department this year including ecologists, forestry inspectors and new administrative staff. There have been six additional Departmental ecologists recruited this year. This means that there are now 14 whole-time equivalent ecologists working in forestry licensing, either as permanent staff members or as contract staff which is an increase from one full-time ecologist last year.

Furthermore, a competition has been concluded to recruit 13 new Forestry Inspectors, a majority of whom will be working in the licensing area.

The staffing of the Forestry Appeals Committee is kept under review, with plans to appoint extra resources shortly to allow the Committee to sit in divisions, as per the amendments recently introduced in the Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2020. Additional administrative and technical support has been given to the FAC this year in order to assist with the increased number of appeals.