The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) forestry service returned 420 undecided tree-felling licence applications that had been in the system over a four-year period.
A ‘triage exercise’ was carried out in June 2021 on “undecided applications” that were received from as far back as May 1, 2017, according to agriculture minister, Charlie McConalogue.
Minister McConalogue said that in applications where the harvest plan was found to have gaps, or where no harvest plan was submitted, these were returned to the registered forester – or forest owner if no registered forester was listed.
The minister was responding to a recent parliamentary question that sought clarity on the delay between receipt and return of applications by the DAFM.
He said individual feedback on how applications could be rectified was provided and these referrals were made over a few days starting on June 24, 2021.
Forestry group demands answers
But the Social, Economic, Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland (SEEFA) is demanding answers from the DAFM about why so much time was allowed to lapse between receiving the majority of applications and requesting further information.
Year Applications requiring more info 2021 12 2020 154 2019 223 2018 30 2017 1 Total 420
Of the 420 applications returned in 2021 due to insufficient information, 223 – or 53% – were submitted to the DAFM in 2019.
Speaking to Agriland, SEEFA founding member, Paddy Bruton said:
“The DAFM sat on 223 of these applications for two years and did nothing.
“If the applications were substandard or lacking in information, why weren’t they returned in the year they were received?
“We maintain that the applications were not substandard at the time they were lodged,” he said.
SEEFA is calling on forestry service officials in the DAFM to provide clarity on the delay (see video released by SEEFA below).
More than 100 SEEFA representatives will stage a protest on Wednesday, November 3, outside government buildings on Kildare Street in Dublin city in response to the crisis facing the industry.
They are seeking direct intervention from the Department of the Taoiseach as “all other options have failed” they say.
Mr. Bruton said that his companies, Forestry Services Limited and Euroforest Ireland were impacted by the delays in the tree-felling licence applications already referred to.
He told Agriland that 25 applications – of the 420 – were returned to him. These applications spanned 2018 to 2021.
“This is completely and totally unacceptable,” he said.
“It resulted in us having to do additional work, that the DAFM is trying to suggest we were at fault for, at a cost to our clients, due to the mismanagement of the DAFM forestry service.”
Progressing
Some of the applications that were returned in June 2021 have now been resubmitted to the DAFM and are progressing to licences, Minister McConalogue said.
The triage exercise is now a permanent feature of the DAFM’s licence-processing approach, he said, which “will lead to better processing of such files”.