Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 2 June 2022
413. Deputy Verona Murphy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of ecologists that were working on afforestation application files for the week commencing 23 May 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28740/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraUnder the Forestry Licensing Plan 2022 we intend to issue 5,250 licences, with a particular focus on afforestation at 1,040 licences, over double the number in 2021.
In order to achieve this, we have improved our systems, and given the number of files referred to ecology, we have recruited additional ecologists. There are 35 full-time equivalent ecologists working on forestry applications, with 21 dealing with afforestation. We expect the impact of this recent recruitment to become evident at end June / beginning of July.
As regards progression towards our overall target, we have at 27th May, 2022 issued 2,019 files which is 95% on target at this stage of the year. To 27th May we issued 249 afforestation licences, with 16 issued in the week commencing 23rd May. We expect this weekly output to increase once the full impact of the new ecologists becomes evident and it remains our commitment to issue 1,040 afforestation licences this year.
