Written answers

Thursday, 10 February 2022

Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Forestry Sector

Photo of Seán SherlockSeán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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104. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on whether the forestry licensing situation for tree felling licences for the private sector is resolved; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7055/22]

Photo of Charlie McConalogueCharlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine issued 4,050 forestry licences last year which is an increase of 56% on the number issued in 2020 albeit this was a low output year. Of these, 1,345 licences were for the private felling sector. This was second highest amount issued to them in the last five years and was 60% higher than the previous year.

We issued more private felling licences last year than applications received which is very encouraging and this trend has continued into early 2022. We are proposing to issue 1,800 private felling licences in 2022 which would be a 36% increase over last year.

Critically, the availability of this volume of timber licensed in 2020, at nearly 8.5 million cubic metres, stabilised supply to the processing sector in 2021. This is the highest volume of timber licensed in a single year.

In addition, 264 kilometres of forest roads were licensed, more than double the target in the Climate Action Plan 2019. This is also the highest ever volume of forest roads issued in a single year. Forest roads enable the haulage of timber from harvested forests.

At the beginning of January 2022, the Department had 4,803 licence applications on hand. This figure has reduced from 6,100 in August 2021. There will always be applications in the system, making their way from application stage to a licence. The Forestry Licensing Plan for this year is finalised and has been published. It will build on the momentum achieved in 2021 and continue to issue tree felling licences.

Along with Minister of State Pippa Hackett, who has overall responsibility for the sector, I remain fully committed to delivering a licensing system which will meets the needs of the sector and of society and recent licensing trends demonstrate that we are making significant progress towards achieving this.

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