Seán Sherlock
Question:142. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of licences received by private farmers versus Coillte in 2020, 2021 and to date in 2022. [7057/22]
View answerThursday, 10 February 2022
Questions (142)
Written answers
Along with Minister of State Pippa Hackett, who has overall responsibility for the sector, it is my aim to continue to deliver a licensing system which meets the needs of all those who apply for forestry licences.
This is regardless of whether that application comes from a private individual who wishes to plant trees, a forest owner who wishes to fell their crop or Coillte who wishes to supply sawmills with product from their estate. Each licence has a value particularly to the rural economy where the timber is harvested, transported and processed.
This is what I am working towards and is the reason I set up Project Woodland earlier this year to resolve our licensing difficulties and why we have also invested heavily in additional resources and in process improvements, alongside Project Woodland, to increase licence output. This has had the desired effect with a marked increase in licences issued in recent months. In fact, we reached our target for 2021, issuing 4,050 forestry licences.
Much of that output has been felling licences split between 2,299 Coillte and 1,309 private applications (64%/36% respectively).
The greater number of applications received are from Coillte, who is responsible for much of the mature national forest estate and supplies 75% of the national supply of logs to sawmills.
In 2020, there was little difference between the felling licences issued to Coillte at 865 and private, at 852. In January this year, my Department has issued 150 licences to Coillte and 143 to private landowners.