The Department of Agriculture has confirmed “there are over 4,500 licences caught up in the system, some for over two years”, according to IFA president Tim Cullinan.

“The Minister of State for Forestry Pippa Hackett must immediately correct the Dáil record in relation to number of licences caught up in a backlog in her Department,” he said.

Cullinan was referring to the minister’s statement to the Joint Oireachtas committee that the delays in issuing licences “have led to a backlog of some 1,900 files on our system for consideration”.

“The target for processing licences in both the legislation and the Charter of Farmers’ Rights is four months,” said Cullinan.

“The covering up of the scale of the problem is a scandal. These delays will be the death knell for our timber industry and our forestry planting programme.”

Data presented by the Department up until the end of September showed 3,916 licence applications in the system. This has been subdivided into the three licence categories (Table 1) by the Association of Irish Forestry Consultants (AIFC) and compiled from Department data. When licences are matched with outturn, there are 7 million m3 of timber awaiting approval while 9,369ha of afforestation and 302km of roads are still in the system. If these areas are correct, the total volume of 7.1m m3 is based on:

  • 14,218ha of clearfells at 400m3/ha realising 5.7m m3 of timber.
  • 28,016ha of thinning at 50m3/ha realising 1.4m m3 of timber.

    • The Department calculates volumes using an average of “70m3/ha for thinning and 330m3/ha for clearfelling,” as pointed out by Colm Hayes of the Department at the joint Oireachtas committee meeting.

    This approach would provide a total of 6.7m m3 of timber awaiting licences, rather than 7.1m m3, a differential of 5%. In addition, AIFC figures show 300 ash dieback reconstitution and underplanting scheme (RUS) applications have not been approved, compared with the 200 provided by the Department to Minister Hackett at last month’s meeting.

    “The Department needs to move immediately to implement IFA’s six-point emergency plan, including an amnesty on felling licences,” Cullinan said.

    System not working

    IFA farm forestry chair Vincent Nally said the system is not working for farmers.

    “The costs and red tape associated with planting and managing a forest are a disincentive to planting and actively discourage management,” he said.

    “The system needs to be streamlined through the amendment of the Forestry Act 2014 to remove the requirement of a licence for forest roads and thinning operations.

    “The submission of a management plan that describes how the forest will be sustainably managed over a 10- to 20-year period should replace the licence requirement,” he said.

    Department response

    On Wednesday, Minister Pippa Hackett issued an update on licences on hand in the Department:

  • There are approximately 4,700 forest licence applications currently in the system, and at various stages of processing.
  • Of these, approximately 2,000 have been referred to ecologists for an appropriate assessment, and a backlog has built up over the last 18 months. These files are being dealt with using a dedicated project plan which was shared with the stakeholders on its publication in July.
  • The remaining 2,700 licences are generally not subject to the delays currently being experienced with licences requiring ecology input.
  • So far this year, the Department has issued 2,330 new licences. 570 of these licences have been issued since the introduction of the new forestry legislation at the beginning of October.