Matt Carthy
Question:1510. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when the online forestry portal will be available; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32647/20]
View answerTuesday, 3 November 2020
Questions (1510)
Written answers
The Forestry Licence Viewer (FLV) is being introduced to align the Department's forestry licensing system with other planning processes. Its purpose is to provide greater transparency and to enhance participation by the public in the decision-making process.
Officials in my Department have been developing the FLV for past few months and this work is nearing completion. The Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020, commenced on 6th October 2020 made provision for the publication, personal information in relation to forestry licence applications, including submissions received. This piece of legislation was crucial to the project.
It is the intention to launch the FLV in three phases.
Phase 1, will show site information for forestry licence applications received from 1st January, 2018 . We expect to launch this phase in mid-November, once system tests are completed.
Phase 2 will provide the user with access to application information and supporting documentation for the licence. This documentation will include applicant names and addresses, along with business names and contact information.
My Department takes very seriously its obligations regarding data protection and the GDPR regulation. Officials of my Department are liaising with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner on the FLV project. It is essential that applicants and others are made aware of and understand that their personal data will be visible the public, like local authority planning portals. Considering the importance of this element of this project, I cannot give a firm timeline on when Phase 2 will be launched. However, my ambition is to make it available by end November.
Further, documents will only be displayed for applications received from the launch of Phase 2. For applications already in the system, applicants and others would not have been made aware nor would they have consented to their information being published. The summary details of these projects will be viewable and interested parties may request the associated documents from the Department.
Phase 3 will enable the making of a submission on a forestry licence application, online, including facilitating payment of the submission fee. This phase will likely go live in early 2021.