Forestry owners will be holding a protest over the “forestry licencing fiasco” in Dublin later today (Wednesday, July 14), according to the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA).

Noting that the “forestry licencing mess has left 6,000 forestry owners without a licence”, the IFA says that forestry owners will demonstrate in a protest this morning.

The demonstration will kick off at 10:00am outside the Convention Centre where the Dáil is sitting, it was added.

This follows news of the publication of the Forestry Dashboard for the week ending July 9 which indicated that only 22 licences were issued, compared to 115 the previous week.

Commenting on the matter yesterday, independent TD for Roscommon-Galway Michael Fitzmaurice said that 10 of those 22 licences were for Coillte felling applications, and just one was a private felling application.

Road and planting applications respectively accounted for six and five of the licences issued.

“While the Forest Service promised that it would deliver 100 applications a week to meet its target of 4,500, we are now beginning to see the reality,” Fitzmaurice argued.

“They were able to keep up the pace for a short time, but the critical problems within have come home to roost now,” he added.