Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 October 2021
294. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of bilateral meetings he or his senior staff have had with the forestry industry in the past three to six months in connection to the CAP strategic plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51400/21]
View answerA consultation on the draft interventions of the CAP Strategic Plan which was conducted in August and September this year has been met with a lot of interest and the Department has received many submissions in response which are currently being examined.
Forest Industries Ireland (FII) made a submission containing proposals on the further integration of tree and forest planting initiatives.
Bilateral meetings between the Department and FII have taken place on 17th May 2022 and 2nd September 2022 respectively. FII have followed-up on their submission with further detailed queries which are currently being considered by Department officials.
The Department also presented to the COFORD Council on the same issues last week, as well of course as ongoing engagement with the CAP Consultative Committee.
As outlined in the draft interventions that have been published by the Department, several tree planting measures have been proposed to be included in the CAP Strategic Plan. Due to the long-term nature of forestry, it is not proposed to include forest planting measures in the new CAP measures, but a separate Forestry Programme which will be the successor of the current Forestry Programme 2014-2020 (extended to end 2022) will be developed.
The planting of trees has the potential to play a significant part in our environmental priorities especially water quality, biodiversity and climate.
I remain committed to integration between the new Forest Strategy and the next CSP to ensure that measures in both will complement each other and lead to increased levels of tree planting.
