Michael Creed
Question:10 Mr. Creed asked the Minister for the Environment if he will establish a planning authority to oversee the development of afforestation through the country.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Afforestation Development.
Gerry Reynolds
Question:35 Mr. G. Reynolds asked the Minister for the Environment if he will establish a planning authority to oversee the development of afforestation throughout the country.
Louis J. Belton
Question:39 Mr. Belton asked the Minister for the Environment if he will establish a planning authority to oversee the development of afforestation throughout the country.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 10, 35 and 39 together.
Prior to 1 February 1990 the use of land for forestry, including afforestation, was exempted development for the purposes of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act. That position was changed, however, by the regulations which I made to implement Directive 85/337/EEC on environment impact assessment, viz., the European Communities (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations, 1989 (S.I. No. 34 of 1989) and the Local Government (Planning and Development) Regulations, 1990 (S.I. No. 25 of 1990). Planning permission is now required for initial afforestation involving an area greater than 200 hectares, and for replacement of broadleaf trees by conifer species where the area involved is greater than ten hectares.
I have no proposals for further changes in the application of planning control to afforestation.
I put down the question because I felt that the 200 hectare regulation was too extensive by far. I would like the Minister to address the question of tree felling which blights the landscape and which developers do not subsequently redress.
The reason the threshold of 200 hectares was chosen was that major forestry proposals that might have serious environmental impact would be brought under the control of the planning authority. Afforestation is much more closely controlled by the Department of Energy under its afforestation grants system. Perhaps the Deputy might pursue that matter with my colleague because that is the area he is getting as far as grant aid is concerned.
I would like to support Deputy Creed. In the West the 200 hectares is a very large area. People who wish to plant trees can get around that by buying smaller portions and what eventually happens is that houses are surrounded by trees and the property becomes worthless. There should be a far more stringent planning application for afforestation.
Is the Deputy supporting afforestation or is he against it?
I do not have anything against the planting of trees. I certainly have something against people planting trees up to where people are living so that whole family farms are surrounded by trees. This is happening because there are no strict planning laws to stop indiscriminate planting.
The views are spoiled; the landscape is spoiled.
That matter might be better taken up with the Minister for Energy because the basic control for the type of afforestation the Deputy is talking about is undertaken by the grant assistance regime that exists. If the afforestation department are not prepared to give grant assistance, then planting will not go ahead. We specifically wrote it in at the level it is so that if a large scale afforestation programme was being undertaken a planning application would have to be made at county council level, in the normal process, if it could impact on the environment to a significiant degree. This works quite well. There are difficulties in so far as the grant assistance for the smaller acreage s are concerned.
In relation to access roads to forests, are there any charges imposed or are there any allocations made from the Minister's Department for access roads to forests in light of the fact that a lot of heavy traffic uses those roads and they are not really suitable for this?
We made some small allocations to a limited number of counties over a couple of years to deal with the break-up of access roads because of the forestry traffic. I have to agree that those roads were never intended to cater for 30 tonners. They were built to carry very light vehicle traffic, up to ten tonnes perhaps. It is a very serious problem and, unfortunately, I am not getting a lot of assistance from the Department of Energy by way of money to deal with the matter.
Do I sense a row?
No, because roads are my responsibility and forestry is the responsibility of the Minister for Energy. I have a lot of sympathy for local authorities who have to bear the cost of trying to keep these roads open when the roads were never built to cater for the kind of commercial activity that is going on at the moment.
Has the Minister any plans to resolve the problems?
There will be substantially increased money to local authorities to relieve the situation.