There are approximately 4,700 forest licence applications currently in the Department of Agriculture's system at various stages of processing, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Pippa Hackett has confirmed.

Of these, approximately 2,000 have been referred to ecologists for an appropriate assessment.

The Department has said that the remaining 2,700 licences are generally not subject to the delays currently being experienced with licences requiring ecology input.

Minister Hackett said: “My Department receives new applications, and issues new licences continually throughout the year. This means there is a constant turnover of applications, with applications at various stages of processing.

“We update our licencing output to stakeholders each week through a dashboard. It is also timely now to update the volume of licences currently on our worklist for processing as we approach the end of the year.”

Employing ecologists

So far this year, the Department has issued 2,330 new licences. Over 570 of these licences have been issued since the introduction of the new Forestry legislation at the beginning of October.

Minister Hackett continued: “We are continuing to invest heavily in resources to help drive output. At the beginning of the year there were just two ecologists working on applications, but now this figure is 16, and my Department is adding to this team.

“Additional forestry inspectors have also been hired to support this work. We are keeping these resources under review, and will continue to invest and recruit.

No inroads

Director of Forest Industries Ireland (FII) Mark McAuley has said the 4,700 applications in the Department’s backlog is an astronomical figure.

“There are no licences that are not experiencing long delays. The Department has fallen far behind and has not managed to make any inroads, in fact the backlog is growing.

“The industry needs 500 felling licences each and every month from the Department. If we can’t get our raw material, then the industry is dead on its feet. We have to see far greater output of licences right now if we are to stave off disaster.”

Misinformation

McAuley has also called for a stop to what he describes as misinformation around Sitka spruce forestry.

“Let’s set the record straight here and now. We grow exactly the right kind of trees to meet the needs of timber construction. This is a major trend including the move to environmentally friendly, low carbon construction using mass timber.

“Ireland’s forests are absorbing millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and are helping to lead the way in the fight against climate change, in fact they absorb the yearly equivalent to that emitted by 1.67m cars on top of long-term carbon capture.”

Read more

Government strategy group on forestry meets for the first time

Backlog of forestry licences won’t be cleared for two years - IFA

84% of Coillte timber remains unlicensed for 2021