Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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764. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the hectarage of Coillte forestry within the State; the percentage of which is native broadleaf; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58900/21]

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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765. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the hectarage of forestry within the State; the percentage of which is native broadleaf by county in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58901/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 764 and 765 together.

Ireland's National Forests Inventory (NFI) in 2017 records the area of forest in Ireland as 770,020ha or 11% of the land area. Conifer species are the dominant forest type and make up 71.2% of all forests. Broadleaved forests represent 28.8%. The table below lists the area and percentage of forest cover per county based on estimates from the national forest inventory. The inventory also provides estimates of the percentage of broadleaves which includes all native species.

The total forest area divided between public and private forests is captured in the National Forest Inventory. The total forest area recorded for the public forest is 391,000 ha, which includes all the Coillte forests. The NFI records that the public forests consists of 79.6% conifers and 20.4% broadleaves.