John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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194. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when he and his Department officials became aware that 4,600 forestry licence applications are backlogged in the Forestry Service; the specific dates; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40675/20]

John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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195. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the way in which his Department concluded that there were circa 2,000 forestry licence applications backlogged in the Forestry Service; the developments that led to the determination that the correct number of backlogged licence applications is 4,600; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40676/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 194 and 195 together.

My Department receives forestry applications and issues new licences every week of the year. This means there is a constant turnover of applications and a worklist which has these applications at various stages of processing. We update our weekly licencing output to stakeholders through a dashboard.

There are approximately 4,700 forest licence applications currently in the system and at various stages of processing.

Of these, approximately 2,000 have been referred to ecologists for an appropriate assessment, and a backlog has built up over the last 18 months. This worklist of approximately 2,000 files is being dealt with by means of a dedicated project plan which was shared with the stakeholders on its publication in July.

Generally, the remainder of licence applications that do not require an appropriate assessment are not subject to the delays currently being experienced with licences requiring ecology input.

To date this year, my Department has issued 2,042 licences. 550 of these licences have issued since the introduction of the new Forestry legislation at the beginning of October.

My Department's overall approach to tackling the backlog of applications is subject to continuous improvement and review with the aim of increasing the output of licences on a weekly basis. At the beginning of the year, there were just two ecologists working on the backlog of applications referred to ecology but this figure is now sixteen. Additional forestry inspectors have also been hired to support this work. This delivered increased output in October and November compared to other months this year. While this still has some considerable way to go, I am encouraged by this progress and intend to sustain and build on this output of licences issued each week.

John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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196. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on whether it is appropriate that An Taisce is appealing applications for forestry licences in view of the ongoing crisis in the forestry and timber sector rather than consulting directly with his Department and in view of the fact that An Taisce receives significant public funding. [40679/20]

John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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197. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of days each of the four divisions of the Forestry Appeals Committee is sitting; the number of hearings each division has heard since it has operated in four divisions since 9 November 2020; the number of hearings each division will hold between now and the end of 2020, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40674/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 196 and 197 together.

The FAC is independent of my Department and reports separately on its output on its own website. The information below has been sourced from the FAC.

With the introduction of the Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 on 7^thOctober 2020, four sub-divisions of the FAC have been established to deal with appeals in an increase from the previous single Committee. The three additional divisions commenced hearing cases on Monday 9^thNovember 2020. All four committees are currently hearing appeals remotely due to Covid-19 restrictions and the hearings are conducted five days per week.

The FAC hear both oral and non-oral hearing appeals and since the introduction of the additional committees, sixty-one cases have been heard with a further forty-two hearings scheduled to take place in December.

The following table outlines the position:

With regard to appeals by An Taisce, the Forestry Appeals Committee (FAC) is operationally independent of my Department and therefore has sole discretion on the validity of any appeal received. Similarly, it is open to any individual or group in the state to submit an appeal.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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198. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the consideration that has been given to altering existing or introducing new supports with regard to ash dieback including broadening the base of eligible applicants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40687/20]

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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199. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the monitoring his Department carries out with regard to the prevalence and effects of ash dieback; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40688/20]

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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200. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the status of his Departments attempts to ensure that the ash species is maintained and restored as a result of the effects of ash dieback; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40689/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 198 to 200, inclusive, together.

The national response to Ash Dieback has moved away from eradication of the disease in light of experience and scientific evidence that such an approach is no longer feasible. The Reconstitution and Underplanting Scheme (RUS) launched in June this year focuses on ash plantation management. This approach categorises plantations in to three groups based on the plantation age and tree size. Different support options are available, depending on the category into which the ash plantation may fall.

The objectives of the Reconstitution and Underplanting Scheme (RUS) are to encourage the active management of ash plantations in the context of the control and spread of the disease. The scheme aims to promote the vigorous growth of ash through thinning to realise as much potential value of the crop as possible and where appropriate in young plantations and in cases of high disease infection, to support the removal of the affected ash crop and replacement with alternative species.

Depending on the age and tree size of the ash plantation, the reconstitution option allows for the entire site to be cleared and replanted with an alternative species. Support available for this option covers the cost of establishment and includes a site clearance grant. The underplanting option is also available where a percentage of the crop is retained while the remainder is cleared to make way for planting a new crop of trees. The Woodland Improvement Scheme may also be an option for some forest owners impacted by ash dieback. This scheme supports two thinning interventions. Transitioning to Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) is also available which consists of three separate interventions.

My Department has received around 200 applications and there are no plans to amend it or to introduce additional supports.

As regards the background to the assessment and monitoring of the disease, following the first confirmed finding of Ash Dieback disease in October 2012, on imported trees used in forestry plantations, intensive surveys for the disease have been conducted year on year since. The surveys conducted in 2019 included a targeted survey of forestry plantations and a systematic survey of National Forest Inventory points across the country.

By the end of 2019, there had been findings in ash in over 650 locations in various settings – forests, nurseries and garden centres, on farm planting, roadside planting, hedgerows and private gardens in all 26 counties. In 2019, due to the wide distribution of Chalara Ash Dieback Disease reports of the disease from the general public in non-grant aided ash trees, for example garden trees and hedgerow trees, were not routinely sampled for laboratory analysis and are not accounted for in the figure of 650. Systematic surveys for ash dieback have continued during 2020.

The Department is actively supporting a number of research projects into the control and management of Ash Dieback disease, in particular projects with a key long-term focus of developing an ash tree breeding programme to identify trees that show strong tolerance to the disease and the genetic basis for tolerance. In this regard, a five-year project was begun in 2013, the aim of which has been to identify individual trees of ash which show tolerance to Ash Dieback and to use them for possible future breeding work and DNA screening by other institutes.

The project, which was part funded by the Department, was carried out by Forest Research, an agency of the Forestry Commission in the UK. The project involves 48 hectares of trial plantings over fourteen sites in the east of England and the mass screening of some 155,000 ash trees with fifteen different provenances from continental Europe, the UK and Ireland. Over 14,000 Irish ash plants from two distinct seed lots were included in the trials. These trials continue to be monitored by Forest Research, while scion material showing early signs of tolerance has been repatriated back to Ireland and incorporated into the Teagasc research effort.

The Department continues to closely follow similar work in Europe. Teagasc has collaborated with a number of European research agencies and has acquired and propagated ash genotypes which have been selected as putatively tolerant to ash dieback disease, having been observed as healthy over several years in infected locations with high tree mortality.

In 2020, with support from this Department under the Forest Genetic Resources Reproductive Material: Seed Stand & Seed Orchard, a collaboration between Teagasc and Coillte resulted in the establishment of the first conservation collection of putatively tolerant ash plants at a forest site in Co. Kilkenny. This planting will be monitored over the coming years in order to assess how tolerance of each genotype holds up.

Also in 2020, officials in this Department contributed to a COFORD Connect Note on ash dieback disease. This note provides a comprehensive background on the state of the disease in Ireland, and a strategy for generating sources of tolerant ash seeds and plants, and for mobilising this material for field planting. This note can be found at

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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201. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department has a programme in place to protect and restore the elm species; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40690/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Dutch elm disease is a forest disease caused by a fungus (Ophiostomaspp.) that affects elms in Europe and North America. Even though a fungus causes the disease, it spreads due to the action of bark beetles, which carry fungal spores allowing the fungus to infect new trees.

Wych elm (Ulmus glabra) is the only native elm species in Ireland and is highly susceptible to Dutch elm disease. Once a very abundant tree in the Irish landscape, it is uncommon to find living mature elm trees nowadays. Even though there is natural resistance to the disease within elm populations, it is extremely rare. Most living elms are thought to have been able to “avoid” the insect rather than being resistant to the disease and those that have survived occur mainly in semi-natural woodland and in hedges in a range of localities around the island. A significant percentage of the mature elm trees in Ireland occur in urban areas where pollution, traffic, buildings and management of parks and gardens protect elm trees from getting in contact with the bark beetles that carry Dutch elm disease.

Teagasc samples of mature elm trees growing in Ireland with a view to propagating them vegetatively as a first step to creating a collection of candidate elm genotypes for screening for resistance to Dutch elm disease. The candidate elms must be older than 40 years or have a diameter larger than 45 cm. In addition, neighbouring elms must show recent signs of the disease. These requirements are used to confirm that the trees are old enough to get infected and that the disease is active in the area. Teagasc continues to ask the public to notify them when an elm tree fulfilling these requirements is identified. Elm is not on the Department’s list of accepted tree species for the afforestation scheme but the Department is supportive of actions that can lead to the conservation of elm under its Native Woodland Conservation scheme.