Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 February 2018
245. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to set out in tabular form the percentage of agricultural land in each county that has been planted with forestry to date. [5162/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraForestry is one of the many land use options available to farmers and land owners and the Afforestation Grant and Premium Scheme is one of a wide range of supports provided by my Department. In 2017, 5,536 hectares of new forestry was planted nationally.
My Department compiles a number of different afforestation statistics annually, which are made available on my Department's website. The National Forest Inventory and the Ireland’s Forests - Annual Statistics 2016 are available on the website and are invaluable sources of statistical information on Ireland’s forest estate.
The area of land afforested in each county is indicated in the following table, which is taken from the National Forest Inventory. The area of forest is estimated to be 731,650 ha or 10.5% of the total land area of Ireland (NFI 2012).
It is not possible to provide the percentage of agricultural land afforested in each county as there is no information available on the total agricultural area in each county.
|
County |
% Area |
|
Carlow |
9.4 |
|
Cavan |
8.7 |
|
Clare |
16.4 |
|
Cork |
11.2 |
|
Donegal |
11.6 |
|
Dublin |
5.7 |
|
Galway |
9.7 |
|
Kerry |
11.2 |
|
Kildare |
6.1 |
|
Kilkenny |
9.2 |
|
Laois |
14.7 |
|
Leitrim |
16.7 |
|
Limerick |
9.8 |
|
Longford |
7.7 |
|
Louth |
2.9 |
|
Mayo |
9.2 |
|
Meath |
5.3 |
|
Monaghan |
4.3 |
|
Offaly |
12.2 |
|
Roscommon |
10.2 |
|
Sligo |
11.2 |
|
Tipperary |
11.2 |
|
Waterford |
14.4 |
|
Westmeath |
7.2 |
|
Wexford |
5.9 |
|
Wicklow |
17.7 |
|
Total |
10.5 |
