Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 October 2022
407. Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 588 of 20 September 2022, if he will detail the minimum and the most time that an ecologist worked on the files referred to in 2021 (details supplied); the minimum and maximum cost in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49355/22]
Amharc ar fhreagra408. Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 588 of 20 September 2022, the average output in terms of number of files per ecologist per week; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49356/22]
Amharc ar fhreagra409. Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 588 of 20 September 2022, stating that there was an average 78 licences per week in 2021, and 92 licences per week to date in 2022 in tabular form the number of ecologists working on said files per week for both 2021 and to date in 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49357/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 407, 408 and 409 together.
Following a Court of Justice of the European Union ruling in 2018 and subsequent High Court rulings, which had transformative implications for the process of screening forestry licence applications for likely environmental effects, approx. 75% of licence applications are now referred for ecological assessment. The referral of such a high proportion of licence applications has been the principal cause of delays in the issuing of licences and of the backlog in the number of licence applications on hand.
To address this, my Department has invested in additional ecology resources. It has recruited a significant number of external ecologists in 2022 and these are focusing exclusively on afforestation in order to increase output further and to meet the target for afforestation licences as set out in the Licencing Plan. These improved outputs for afforestation are now coming through on the monthly and quarterly output figures. Improvements to process have also been introduced and outputs from Project Woodland are contributing to a better functioning licensing system. These outputs include implementation of an end-to-end process review and of an independent expert regulatory review, completion of a training needs analysis and commencement of an organisational review, the roll-out of a pre-application discussion initiative nation-wide and the payment of an environmental grant in 2022.
The average DAFM output per week to date in 2022 for licences approved is 93 files. On the basis that 75% of these had an ecologist input approximately 70 files per week had ecology input. Based on an average of 30 ecologists on hand in 2022, each ecologist on average processed slightly over 2.3 files per week.
In 2021 the average DAFM output per week for licences approved was 78 files. On the basis that 75% of these had an ecologist input approximately 58 files per week had ecology input. Based on an average of 22 ecologists on hand in 2022, each ecologist on average processed slightly over 2.6 files per week.
The total number of ecologists working within the Forestry Inspectorate fluctuates. The average number of Full Time Equivalents ecologists in 2022 is approximately 30, but today this number stands at 35.
As previously stated, in 2021, the estimated average cost of ecology input per file was around €650 to €700.
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 around 75 to 80% of all licences files, but they also work on other non-licence files and other ecology-related activities.
