Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 29 September 2022
279. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of forestry licence applications predating 2021 that remain to be processed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47768/22]
View answerTo date in 2022, there is an overall significant increase on all licensing categories compared with last year. Up to 23rd September, 2022, 3,520 licences have issued as compared to the projected of 3,838 licences. In fact in the 12 month period to the end of August 2022 we have issued over 5,100 licences.
July, August and September have shown significant signs of improvement in afforestation licensing and we intend to maintain this momentum.
There are currently 516 licences remaining to be processed of the 1,683 licences predating 2021 that were on hand at the start of 2022. In many of these cases, further information was required from the applicant. We are embarking on an intensive effort over the next few weeks to prioritise clearing older files ahead of the new forestry programme.
In the interest of full transparency details of all licences issued by category are available on the weekly dashboard. This is published on the Departmental website and is made available to all interested parties as well as being submitted to the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine each week.
The Department's forestry dashboard is available here: gov.ie/ga/bailiuchan/15b56-forest-statistics-and-mapping/
