Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 December 2021
359. Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department approved the environmental grant as recommended by working group 4 of Project Woodland, before returning €7 million of capital spending from the forestry budget; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [61027/21]
View answerAs part of Project Woodland, Working Group 4 (WG4) were tasked with considering an environmental planning grant. This is to support the applicant in the preparation of habitat maps or similar documents when an application is submitted on their behalf.
An environmental planning grant was recommended in the MacKinnon Report.
My Department has responded to this by proposing to introduce a new environmental grant intended to cover some or all of the cost of an ecology report submitted with an afforestation application. This will be paid when we are paying for the establishment of the plantation i.e. at Form 2 stage.
This has the advantage of being efficient to implement for forestry companies, applicants and my Department. My Department requires a number to weeks to implement the necessary changes to the claim/payments system, following a decision to proceed, so that payments can commence early next year.
Working Group 4 have also asked for other options to be considered and we are reviewing these requests and will respond directly to WG4 in due course.
