Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 November 2022
597. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the length of time that it took his Department to process each of the 11 afforestation licences on week four of October 2022 on the weekly dashboard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56102/22]
View answer600. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the estimated cost of ecology input for the 11 afforestation licences issued on week number four of October's dashboard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56135/22]
View answer620. Deputy Matt Shanahan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will confirm the number of ecologists involved in processing the 11 afforestation licences on week four of October 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56599/22]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 597, 600 and 620 together.
I am pleased to advise that this year we have seen considerable improvements in the issuance of forestry licences and a large decrease in the files with the Department.
We are issuing significantly more afforestation licences (621 year to date) than applications received (359 year to date), and this means that the backlog continues to drop, with faster turnaround times for new applicants.
The production of licences is a team effort and requires administrative staff, forestry Inspectors and when required archaeologists and ecologists. It is estimated that ecologists are involved in 75% to 80% of all files issued.
DAFM has issued 93 licences on average each week this year. On the basis that 75% of these had an ecologist input approximately 70 files per week had ecology input.
In relation to afforestation the pace of processing of these applications has picked up significantly, since increased ecological resources have been recruited with 238 licences processed in the 3rd quarter of this year, compared to 131 in the second quarter.
Taking account of all forestry licence types the average cost per file licensed that had ecology input is approximately €650 per file in 2022.
In relation to the 11 Afforestation licences on the dashboard for week 4 of October, there were 7 different DAFM ecologists involved and the turn-around times were as follows:
|
<120 days |
1 |
|
120 days to 6 months |
1 |
|
6 to 12 months |
5 |
|
>12 months |
4 |
