Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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2544. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the action being taken to deal with the lengthy delays for those applying for forestry felling licences (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20253/21]

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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2545. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the status of the current process for felling licences; the number of ecologists employed in the section; his plans to increase the number of staff in that area to deal with the long delays for ecology reports for applicants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20269/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 2544 and 2545 together.

I am aware of the issues facing the forestry sector and the timber industry and considerable efforts have been made to address them. The Department has invested heavily in both ecologist and forestry Inspector resources over the last 18 months in order to meet the needs of the licencing system. We now have 21 full-time equivalent ecologists where previously we had one just 18 months ago. This has resulted in a significant improvement in the licencing output with, for example, almost three million m3 of felling licences issuing from last October to January. The total number of tree felling licences issued to end March this year is up 53% on last year, by timber volumes licensed, and up by 15% on felling licences issued. In total in 2021, my Department has issued 564 tree felling licences.

We acknowledge that the progress that has been made needs to be improved and sustained. Consequently, we are implementing internal changes to improve output including training, increased assistance to ecologists in the preparation of files, improved IT resources for ecologists and other system improvements. In addition, we are engagement intensively with the sector who also have a role to play by is focusing on improvement in the quality and consistency of applications and subsequent information including NISs.

Through Project Woodland, there is now a dedicated working group around the Backlog and establishing KPIs and a separate working group is charged with examining our internal processes that includes an end-to-end review of systems to ensure that they are made more efficient and are environmentally robust. We are recruiting project management and systems analyst expertise to assist in this process.

Overall we have set ourselves a target to issue 4,500 licences in 2021 which is a 75% increase on 2020.

I remain hopeful and confident that the changes presented under the Project Woodland structure to processes within my Department will bear fruit, particularly to give confidence to all applicants that they can receive a timely decision on their forestry licence application.