Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 23 June 2021
302. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 541 of 25 May 2021, if he will refer the forestry service to the Committee of Public Accounts to examine if the taxpayer is getting value for money; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33682/21]
View answerAs previously outlined, as Divisions within the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, both the Forestry Division and Forestry Division Inspectorate are amenable to the Public Accounts Committee.
The Irish forestry sector is a significant employer in rural Ireland of almost 12,000 jobs. Improving the licensing situation is a key priority for me, Minister of State Pippa Hackett who has responsibility for forestry and the Department and no effort is being spared to achieve this. We need to maintain an intense focus on achieving this. Some early progress is being made with licences up 23% year-on-year and I fully expect this figure to increase as the year goes on, accepting that last year was especially low in terms of output.
Delays in forestry licensing arose because of a very significant change in procedures in relation to Appropriate Assessment as a result of European Court of Justice judgements and subsequent interpretation by the Irish courts and the Forestry Appeals Committee. Every effort has been made to address this situation with additional inspectorate, ecology and administrative resources recruited, along with training and guidance for both Departmental staff and registered foresters.
The complexity of introducing a completely new assessment procedure inevitably took time to take effect and this has affected output. Having said that, there have been recent gains in productivity, with the 1,594 licences issued to date this year representing a 23% increase on the same period last year. As regards felling, a volume of just over 3.1 million cubic metres has issued so far this year, which is a 58% increase on the same period last year and represents 76% of the COFORD Roundwood Forecast which predicts a potential harvest of 4.1 million cubic metres in 2021.
While we moving in the right direction, we are more than aware of the impact of the backlog on the sector and, in order to improve the functioning and delivery of the licensing process, Minister Hackett, launched Project Woodland in February. This puts in place a framework consisting of a Project Board and four Working Groups, chaired by independent chairs and with outside stakeholders as members, which aims at resolving the backlog and introducing more efficient and effective processes. The process improvement exercise will examine, among other things, whether resources may be deployed more effectively and an organisational review of forestry teams within the Department will consider the structure, roles and responsibilities of these teams relative to outputs sought.
Along with Minister of State Pippa Hackett, I remain hopeful that the framework now in place under Project Woodland will address our current difficulties and will result in a licensing system which meets the needs of forest owners and new applicants and the forestry sector as a whole.
