Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue and Minister of State for land use and biodiversity Pippa Hackett will appear before an Oireachtas committee this week to give an update, and answer questions, on forestry.
Ministers McConalogue and Hackett will attend the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine tomorrow evening (Wednesday, October 4).
They will discuss Ireland’s Forestry Programme and Strategy with the committee members.
The committee session will begin at 5:30, and takes place in Committee Room 3 of Leinster House.
The appearance of both ministers at the committee comes as the main opposition party, Sinn Féin, said that the new Forestry Programme “runs the risk of being plagued by the same issues as the previous programme”.
Claire Kerrane, the party’s spokesperson on agriculture, said that, despite the new programme, issues around the licencing system remain.
“There appears to be no licence plan in place yet for the remainder of 2023, or for 2024,” Kerrane said.
“In addition, there is little sign of clear timelines around licencing improving and no commitments on this matter from Minister McConalogue.”
It has also emerged that some applicants to the afforestation scheme in the old Forestry Programme will be ineligible in the new one, with even more on-hand applications potentially being excluded pending a review by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
There are 437 applications that are currently on hand that were received under the previous programme.
Where an applicant has opted into the new programme, the associated file is checked against the rules and regulations of the new programme by department officials.
The new programme has a number of changes that will impact the area available for planting.
3% of those 437 afforestation applications are now ineligible under the conditions of the scheme as they are within 1.5km of a curlew site. Of the remainder, over 70% will require further assessment regarding their eligibility as they are in areas where new restrictions may apply.
Those applications requiring further assessment are either on peat soils, in high-nature-value areas, in breeding wader areas, or a combination of these.