Written answers
Wednesday, 20 March 2024
Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Forestry Sector
Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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1025. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of access information on the environment requests have been submitted to the forestry section in each of the years 2020 to 2023 and to date in 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12553/24]
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 133 of 2007), gives legal rights to those seeking access to information on the environment from public authorities. These Regulations came into effect on 1 May 2007, repealing the previous legislation, the European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 1998. S.I. 662 of 2011, S.I. 615 of 2014 and S.I. 309 of 2018 revised these regulations further. These Regulations are currently under review.
An unofficial consolidation of the Regulations is available here:
www.gov.ie/en/organisation-information/1e52cb-access-to-information-on-the-environment-aie/#aie-legislation
The Regulations provide a definition of environmental information and outline the manner in which requests for information should be provided to public authorities.
Information relating to the environment held by, or for, a public authority must be made available on request to any person subject to certain exceptions.
Since 2019 there has been a marked increase in the number of AIE requests received by my Department and in particular on Forestry. The table below outlines the number of requests received by DAFM overall and the number of those that relate to Forestry..
| Year | Total AIEs recvd by DAFM | Total Forestry AIEs | Total Internal reviews recvd by DAFM | Total Forestry Internal reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 69 | 37 | 8 | 7 |
| 2020 | 142 | 98 | 19 | 10 |
| 2021 | 290 | 163 | 68 | 43 |
| 2022 | 32,297 | 30,630 | 378 | 352 |
| 2023 | 656 | 573 | 248 | 221 |
| 2024 | 209 | 187 | 75 | 64 |
The Forestry Division has developed a dedicated unit to respond to the increase in AIE requests. Currently, there are 8.5 full time staff engaged in this unit, ensuring that my Department meets it’s statutory obligations under the AIE regulations.
The Department of Environment, Climate and Communications publish the annual statistics of all AIE requests received by all public bodies in Ireland, which can be found here: National AIE Statistics
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