Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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412. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if the expenditure by the forestry division in his Department is in line with budget for the month of May 2022 and ensuring that there is no underspend again in this Department for 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28739/22]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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415. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the expenditure by the Forestry Service for the month of May 2022 compared to May 2021, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28777/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 412 and 415 together.

The expenditure under the Forestry Budget for the month of May this year and last year is shown in the table below:

The spending in May this year exceeds last year and is  in line with projected spending at this stage of the year.The expenditure for May 22 of €4,315,725  is only slightly under the profiled amount of €4,695,800.  The remainder of the forestry budget has been apportioned to meet anticipated budgetary needs during the year. The budget allocation provides for new planting, the servicing of existing afforestation contracts and payments in relation to forestry support schemes. The Deputy will be aware that the afforestation scheme is demand-led. My Department will continue to closely monitor expenditure versus anticipated spend throughout 2022.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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413. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of ecologists that were working on afforestation application files for the week commencing 23 May 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28740/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Forestry Licensing Plan 2022 we intend to issue 5,250 licences, with a particular focus on afforestation at 1,040 licences, over double the number in 2021.

In order to achieve this,  we have improved our systems, and given the number of files referred to ecology, we have recruited additional ecologists. There are 35 full-time equivalent ecologists working on forestry applications, with 21 dealing with afforestation. We expect the impact of this recent recruitment to become evident at end June / beginning of July.

As regards progression towards our overall target, we have at  27th May, 2022 issued 2,019 files which is 95% on target at this stage of the year.  To 27th May we  issued 249 afforestation licences, with 16 issued in the week commencing 23rd May.  We expect this weekly output to increase once the full impact of the new ecologists becomes evident and it remains our commitment to issue 1,040 afforestation licences this year.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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414. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of private sector forest road approvals issued for week commencing 23 May 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28741/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Forestry Licensing Plan 2022, we aim to increase the number of licences issuedto 5,250 and specifically to increase the number of  forest roads licences to 850, an increase of 27% on 2021.

To date we have issued 317 forest  road licences, which is broadly in line with our target.

Forest road applications are received and decided daily.  For week commencing 23rd May, 16 forest road licences were issued to private applicants and two were issued to Coillte.

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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416. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the average output of files per ecologist for May 2022 for afforestation files, private sector felling licences, Coillte felling licences, private sector forest road applications, Coillte forest road applications and ash dieback RUS applications in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28778/22]

Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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417. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of ecologists who were working on Ash dieback RUS applications files for the week commencing 23 May 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28783/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 416 and 417 together.

Under the Forestry Licensing Plan 2022 we intend to issue 5,250 licences, and to increase our output across all licence categories, with the exception of Coillte felling which will remain the same as 2021.  In addition  we intend to deliver on  approvals under the Reconstitution and Underplanting Scheme (RUS) -Ash Dieback.

In order to achieve these targets, we have improved our systems, and given the number of files referred to ecology, we have recruited additional ecologists. There are now 35 full-time equivalent ecologists working on forestry, with 21 very recently recruited now dealing with afforestation.  These ecologists have undertaken initial training in our systems, familiarised themselves with the DAFM afforestation licensing process and the standard operating procedures.

Therefore, as they now begin to examine application files, we expect the impact of this recent recruitment to become evident at end June / beginning of July.

As regards progression towards our target, we have at  27th May, 2022 issued 2,019 files which is 95% on target at this stage of the year.  The output for May across the various categories is outlined in the table below:

The number of RUS approvals issued in the week commencing the 23 May was 4 with a total of 50 RUS approvals issued year-to-date.

Along with Minister of State Pippa Hackett, who has overall responsibility for the sector, we remain committed to delivering on the ambitions outlined in the Licensing Plan 2022.