Independent TD for Laois Offaly, Carol Nolan, has clashed with the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar on issues relating to the resolution of the licensing crisis affecting the forestry sector.
Deputy Nolan was speaking after she raised the matter during Leaders Questions in the Dáil, a day after the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) led a protest to highlight the problems facing the sector outside the Convention Centre where the Dáil is sitting.
“I think that any farmer, or indeed anyone involved in forestry, who watched the Tánaiste’s performance and listened to his responses to my questions, would have been infuriated by the level of detachment and unreality that was on display,” deputy Nolan said.
“The Tánaiste just does not get it. His government does not get it.”
“The Tánaiste talked about a 29% increase on licences from the same period last year, but he conveniently forgot to mention that the forestry legislation his Minister for Land Use and Biodiversity introduced a full nine months ago, was pushed through the Oireachtas with guarantees and assurances that it contained a suite of measures that would rapidly create a more efficient system,” she added.
Forestry crisis continues
Despite these promises, deputy Nolan said that the forestry sector is still mired within a “needlessly complex and labyrinthine assessment process” that has almost 6,000 licences waiting for a decision.
The independent TD added that farmers are still waiting more than two years for a licence to thin forest, despite the legislation stating that they should get a decision within four months.
Deputy Nolan continued: “That is a 500% increase in the deadline time set out in law. So, we are very clearly not, as the Tánaiste claims, ‘moving in the right direction’.”
The Laois Offaly representative is supporting the IFA’s call for emergency legislation, removing the requirement for farmers to obtain a licence for forest road construction and thinning operations.
“There is always the option of inserting a sunset clause into such emergency legislation until the kind of genuinely effective regulatory reforms that are needed are put in place, reforms that are capable of clearing the enormous backlog,” she said.
“Without this kind of action, thousands of jobs will almost certainly be lost unnecessarily, and it will be a direct consequence of this government’s failure to grasp the depth of the crisis rural Ireland and the sector is facing,” the deputy concluded.
The Minister of State for forestry, Pippa Hackett recently announced that she has asked the project board of Project Woodland to immediately commission an independent external regulatory review of the forestry licensing process
Minister Hackett also reiterated that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is committed to its target of 4,500 licences this year and appointed five new ecologists last month.