Following more than two years of complaints and legal action by the Association of Irish Forestry Consultants (AIFC), the Department of Agriculture has agreed to remove the requirement that the name of licensees should appear on public notices on harvesting sites.

"We raised this issue with the Department as far back as July 2018 following feedback from farmers and individual forest owners that these notices were seen as an unlawful and unnecessary invasion of their privacy," said AIFC chair Dermot Houlihan.

"In addition, they presented a potential risk to the personal safety of forest owners living in remote rural areas," he added.

"In February 2021, having taken legal advice, we wrote to Minister Pippa Hackett contending that the Department was in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

"Even though there is no requirement to feature the forest owners' names on harvesting sites in the Forestry Act, the Minister insisted that there were no plans to amend the requirement to have personal information displayed on site notices."

Houlihan said barrister Ciaran Dolan made a formal submission to the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) on behalf of the AIFC in August 2021.

"Last April, the DPC advised the Minister to amend the tree felling site notice forms, but the Department continued to prevaricate," he said. "After a further four months' delay and more communication from the DPC, the Department finally agreed to revise the tree felling site notice."