Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Tackling the backlog in forestry licenses remains a key priority for my Department and significant progress has been made in the past year, particularly on felling and road licences.

The investment in resources and continual improvement has had a positive impact, with an increase in licence output in recent months and with 3,718 licences issued to date this year. I am confident that we will meet our target of 4,000 licences by year end. For the last 14 weeks, we have issued an average of 115 licences each week and I expect this progress to continue.

The delays that have arisen were caused by changes to the licensing system arising from Court decisions, which means that a significant number of cases now need ecological input to comply with environmental requirements. To find solutions towards resolving these issues, as well as focusing on woodland creation, Project Woodland was initiated early in 2021.

We are making progress under Project Woodland with the second interim report published at the end of October. In terms of licensing, an important initiative is the in-depth review of the forestry licensing system being carried out by external consultants with legal and environmental expertise. It will review the existing statutory framework for the licensing of forestry activities in relation to environmental and public participation obligations in order that practical advice can be provided to the Department on how to work more efficiently within the existing legal framework. That report is expected at end February next. Alongside Project Woodland, we continue to look at our processes.

We will build on this momentum in 2022 and will implement any and all practical process improvements which result from the review and analysis in train under Project Woodland. I remain fully committed to delivering a licensing system which will meets the needs of the sector and of society as a whole.