Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 December 2020
838. Deputy Martin Browne asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of backlogged forestry licences in the system; his views on claims to the COFORD Advisory Council that the figure could be as many as 4,600; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41800/20]
View answerMy Department receives forestry applications and issues new licences every week of the year. This means there is a constant turnover of applications and a worklist which has these applications at various stages of processing. We update our weekly licencing output to stakeholders through a dashboard.
There are approximately 4,700 forest licence applications currently in the system, at various stages of processing.
Of these, approximately 2,000 have been referred to ecologists for an appropriate assessment, and a backlog has built up over the last 18 months. This worklist of approximately 2,000 files is being dealt with by means of a dedicated project plan which was shared with the stakeholders on its publication in July.
Generally, the remainder of licence applications that do not require an appropriate assessment are not subject to the delays currently being experienced with licences requiring ecology input.
To date this year, we have issued 2,330 licences. 570 of these licences have issued since the introduction of the new Forestry legislation at the beginning of October.
My Department's overall approach to tackling the backlog of applications is subject to continuous improvement and review with the aim of increasing the output of licences on a weekly basis. At the beginning of the year, there were just two ecologists working on the backlog of applications referred to ecology but this figure is now 16. Additional forestry inspectors have also been hired to support this work. This delivered increased output in October and November compared to other months this year. While this still has some considerable way to go, I am encouraged by this progress and intend to sustain and build on this output of licences issued each week.
