Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 March 2022
838. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason that the number of afforestation licences only exceeded 20 on two occasions in his Department’s weekly dashboard in 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15859/22]
View answerAs the Deputy is likely to be aware, delays in issuing forestry licences arose because of certain court judgements and their interpretation which resulted in the majority of cases becoming subject to Appropriate Assessment and therefore requiring ecological input.
This was particularly impactful on afforestation licences as afforestation is a land-use change and those files are more complex in nature. Each application for an afforestation licence must be assessed on its own merits having regard to the specificities of the proposed location, and as a result it has been difficult to accelerate the consideration of individual licences as we would have liked.
We issued 4,050 forestry licences in total 2021, which was an increase of 56% on the number issued in 2020. These approvals included 2,877 felling licences. Critically, the availability of this volume of timber, at nearly 8.5 million cubic metres, stabilised supply to the processing sector in 2021. This is the highest volume ever issued in a single year.
In addition, 264 kilometres of forest roads were licensed more than double the target in the Climate Action Plan 2021. This is also the highest ever volume of forest roads issued in a single year. The number afforestation licences remained static, with 502 afforestation licences issued, which represents 4,245ha of forestry.
We intend to build on this momentum in 2022, and to issue 5,250 licences, which is a year-on-year increase of 30%. In particular we are going to prioritise afforestation licences and increase the number issued to 1,040, which is more than double our output in 2021. This will be brought about by system improvements and increased resources focussed on ecology.
Eleven new ecologists recruited through competitive tenders are currently being trained in and will be working exclusively on afforestation files. It will take some weeks before the effect of the new ecologists will be seen on the dashboard as many of the files when processed will require a 2nd stage 30 day consultation period and only after that can an Appropriate Assessment Determination be finalised and an approval letter issue.
