Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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821. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the average number of afforestation licences that are targeted for issuance per week in 2022; and the average issued per week to date. [27653/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I will refer the Deputy to his Dáil question number 167 of 26th May that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine issued 4,050 forestry licences last year, which was an increase of 56% on the number issued in 2020.  Along with Minister of State Pippa Hackett, who has overall responsibility for the sector, the priority this year is to increase the number of licences issued to 5,250 and in particular to focus on increasing the number of afforestation licences.

In this regard we intend to double the number of afforestation licences to 1,040.  This means issuing on average around  20  afforestation licences per week is the target.  Up to 20th May, 299 afforestation licences have been issued, which I acknowledge is  below the projected average and is around 12 per week.  It is, however, we have recently recruited additional ecology resources and these 36 full-time equivalents will begin to positively impact output.

In the interest of full transparency details of all licences issued by category are available on the weekly dashboard. This is published on the Departmental website and is made available to all interested parties as well as being submitted to the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine each week.