Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 March 2022
860. Deputy Jackie Cahill asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the average number of recon and underplanting scheme approvals and decisions that the Forestry Service must issue each week from now until the end of the year 2022 to ensure that all of the applications currently on hand in his Department are dealt with by the end of 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15927/22]
View answerSince the first finding of ash dieback disease in Ireland, my Department has provided support totalling over €7 million to owners of ash plantations impacted by ash dieback disease through the ash dieback reconstitution scheme (introduced in 2013) and more recently the Reconstitution and Underplanting Scheme (RUS – Ash dieback) introduced in July 2020.
Applications for that RUS are received regularly, and decisions are issued as the assessment of the applications are complete. To date, the Department has received 608 applications covering 2,459ha and has issued 186 decisions for 600ha.
The Forestry Licensing Plan 2022 was published earlier this year and deals with projected licensing output and approvals for support schemes and may be found here gov.ie - Forestry Licensing Plan 2022 (www.gov.ie). A key target of the plan is to refocus on the delivery on approvals from the Reconstitution and Underplanting Scheme (RUS) (Ash Dieback). Many RUS applications are screened in for Appropriate Assessment and are referred to ecology. Of these, any that propose replacing the ash crop with conifer species currently require planning permission. My Department continues to engage with the Department of Housing Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH), with the objective of removing the planning permission requirement for these files.
