Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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1046. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the average length of time it takes to approve an afforestation application; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13547/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Forestry will play an important role in meeting our environmental objectives under the Climate Action Plan and on biodiversity as outlined in the Programme for Government. It is for this reason my Department will be focusing on afforestation applications in the coming weeks. I am mindful of the seasonality associated with afforestation and while other forestry licence types will continue to issue, afforestation will be the priority.

My Department continues to receive and issue forestry licences daily. To 5th March, the area covered by issued afforestation licences so far this year was 903ha. There are currently applications within my Department’s system, covering 9,600ha, which are at various stages of processing, from the initial application steps, to ready for decision. In addition, there is another 4,500ha already approved and available to plant immediately. It is up to landowners to decide to plant, once they have received approval to do so, and I would encourage anyone that has approval to arrange financial approval, which is a straightforward process completed by their registered forester, and to commence planting.

Decisions that issued for afforestation licences in the last 12 months (March 2020 to February, 2021) were in the system for an average time of nine months. Some licences have issued in much shorter timeframe where they are easier to assess from an environmental point of view and every week there are applicants who receive licences on which applications were made only in the previous two months. However I accept that there are also those that are too long in the system and we are not meeting our output targets.

The MacKinnon report which is now being implemented through our recently announced Project Woodland has made some key recommendations on this. One of the main targets will be to bring down the average timeframe from nine months. One of the working groups implementing Project Woodland will be tasked with setting new milestones and targets for output.

We have now set ourselves a target of issuing 4,500 forestry licences in 2021, which includes afforestation, roads and felling. A new structure, under Project Woodland, is being introduced to ensure that the current backlog is addressed and that a new impetus is brought to woodland creation in Ireland. This Project will involve a review and refresh of our processes and procedures and will include outside stakeholder participation to bring an independent perspective. It will be a task-driven process, with clear deliverable and milestones, and I anticipate that we will reach our 4,500 target this year.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate my commitment to supporting afforestation and to encourage farmers to look at tree planting as a complementary income stream to a productive farming enterprise.

Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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1047. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if the total expense of the additional ecologists recruited by his Department had been compared in terms of value for money to the costed woodland environmental planning grant proposal submitted to his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13548/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The introduction of a new requirement for an Environmental report supported by a Planning grant is one of the recommendations in the Mackinnon report. The implementation report by Jo O’Hara, accepted by me, will now be advanced under Project Woodland.

This, however, is a completely separate issue to the funding of ecologists which are an integral part of the licence approval process.

Therefore, there has been no comparison made between the amount of money spent on ecologists and any proposal for planning grants, nor would it be appropriate to do so. Any Natura Impact Statements prepared by the sector, while providing a time saving to the Department, would still require to be examined by Department ecologists and the Department ecologists would be required to prepare an Appropriate Assessment Determination for any site where Appropriate Assessment is required.