Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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706. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he accepts that the Forestry Service needs to supplement the income for foresters, in light of the fact that the Forestry Service is not accepting grant-aided applications or issuing new approvals for forestry schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11547/23]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is involved in intensive discussions with the EU Commission to secure state aid approval for the ambitious and attractive forestry programme. I am also acutely aware of the pressures some foresters are currently experiencing. It is crucially important that there are registered foresters available to help us deliver on our ambitious planting targets once the new Forestry Programme receives its State Aid approval from the EU Commission.

My Department has been working with the industry to explore solutions to these temporary problems. Minister of State Hackett met with the pillar banks this week where support for the forestry sector was emphasised. The Department is focused on maximising the volume of work available while ensuring prompt payment for work completed. To this end we have reviewed all options available and have introduced a suite of measures to assist in this regard.

- All applications that are in the system are being worked on and processed in the normal manner, progressing to the point just before certification and approval. The aim is to have all the work done on as many grant aid files as possible so that approvals will be ready to issue as soon as the state aid approval is granted. These sites would then be immediately available to commence.

- I launched the Interim DeMinimis scheme for afforestation and roads to help bridge the lacuna between the old and new Forestry Programmes. As you are aware, there are 1,023 approved afforestation licences with 7,591 ha ready for planting and to date nearly 1,1120 hectares have been approved for planting under the Interim De Minimis schemeas well as 12.333 metres of forest roads. We are continuing to receive and process such applications each day and have worked with the industry to ensure that this work can be carried out as expeditiously as possible.

- I also will be launching an interim scheme for the reconstitution of some 228 approved files for 728 Hectares of ash. This scheme will have attractive additional features which will enable work to commence on those sites.

- Applications for Forestry payments are being processed and expedited by my Department while updates to the IT systems are being made to ensure that the new programme can be implemented when state aid approval is received.