The Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), Pippa Hackett has said that it would be “inappropriate” for department officials to discuss details of ongoing negotiations with the EU on the forestry programme.
The Green Party senator was responding to calls from the Social, Economic, Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland (SEEFA) for her to resign over the delay with the new programme.
The Irish government has sought approval from the European Commission for its proposed new €1.3 billion forestry programme for 2023 to 2027.
The new programme is subject to state aid approval under guidelines from the commission.
Hackett
SEEFA, the representative body for the private forestry sector in Ireland, said that it is “outraged” that the new forestry programme has not yet been implemented.
SEEFA believes that the sector has been misled in relation to the proposed new forestry scheme to the detriment of its members who continued to invest in their businesses assuming the programme would be operational from January.
“This misinformation, together with the failure to ensure that the scheme was implemented by the extended deadline of January 2023, can only be regarded as negligence and a dereliction of duty by Senator Hackett,” it said.
The organisation claimed the fact that there is no operational forestry scheme for the first time since the commencement of private forestry in Ireland points to “a lack of interest” on the part of Minister Pippa Hackett in progressing commercial forestry.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the minister said that “the department has been in intensive engagement with the European Commission to secure approval for the forestry programme”.
The row has erupted following the appearance of two DAFM forestry officials before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine last Wednesday (July 5).
The meeting was suspended as the committee members could not be provided with more clarity on the department’s response to environmental concerns raised by the EU Commission about Ireland’s new forestry programme.
However, Minister Hackett’s spokesperson said: “It would be inappropriate for officials to discuss the details of these negotiations as they are ongoing and any suggestion that information is being withheld is disingenuous.
“Forestry is a key policy under the Climate Action Plan, and the minister and her officials are fully committed to delivering an ambitious forestry programme as soon possible,” they added.