Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 September 2022
2147. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the measures that he is taking to address the ongoing backlog of forestry licences.; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43780/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy may be aware, Project Woodland was established to improve the forestry licensing system, to deal with the backlog and to drive forward the planting of trees under a shared vision for forestry in Ireland.
As part of the work undertaken to deliver on the Project, a legal and regulatory review of forestry licensing was carried out by Philip Lee Solicitors and, following extensive stakeholder engagement, their Report was published on 29th June, 2022.
Philip Lee reviewed and critically analysed the existing EU and domestic legal framework for the licensing of forestry activities, including relevant case law. In addition, the Report focuses on practical and implementable options for streamlining processes and procedures, having regard to arrangements in other European countries and the constraints imposed under EU law, as interpreted by the Courts.
The Department has summitted its draft action plan for the implementation of the recommendations contained in the Report to the Project Woodland Project Board, which is in turn making recommendations to my colleague, Minister of State Pippa Hackett, with the implementation of certain recommendations already under way.
Work is also on-going with the implementation of the 57 recommendations arising from a business process review carried out under Project Woodland. An Agile Implementation Group is implementing system solutions, including new functionality arising from that review.
This work builds on earlier improvements to our processes. These improvements have facilitated the preparation of Appropriate Assessment Reports by my Department, which removes this burden from applicants in most cases. Associated with this and in order to assist foresters in submitting quality applications, we recently provided habitat map training and training for ecologists was held in July. Furthermore, a pre-application discussion pilot has been completed and we now intend to deliver this at a national level. All of these measures are aimed at improving the quality of applications received and optimising the time of those assessing applications.
Furthermore, in tandem with reviewing processes, I have substantially increased the resources available to process forestry licences, including additional ecologist numbers now focused on afforestation licence applications.
I believe these efforts have had a positive impact as we have issued 3,169 licences to end August, which is 92% of our projected average at this point in the year. As regards addressing the backlog, my Department has 3,507 current applications on hand. Since 1st January, this figure has reduced from 4,800 and from 6,000 in August 2021. This is significant progress. The number of applications now in backlog, i.e over 120 days, stands at 1,912.
In the interest of full transparency, details of all licences issued by category are available on the weekly dashboard. This is published on my Department's 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.
We will continue to focus on improvements to the system and to assist those who are engaging with it by means of improved communication and training.
