FORESTRY DELAYS MUST BE CLEARED
Speaking at the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee last week, Cork East TD and Labour Party Agriculture Spokesperson, Seán Sherlock, said that it is unacceptable that people are being frustrated by bureaucracy in the Department in regards to forestry.
“The fact remains, however, that there is a perception, whether we like it or not, that preference and priority is given to Coillte applications and that the screening, and the rules for screening, do not seem to apply as rigorously to Coillte applications as they do to applications coming from private forestry owners,” said Deputy Sherlock.
“As public representatives, we are not getting a clear sight of what is happening internally in the Department. Therefore, the Minister of State can surely understand why frustration arises when there are named people in the Department who have responsibility for implementing the policy. People perceive that blockages are being put in place.
Deputy Sherlock outlined one individual’s case, who used the services of an experienced consultant forester to obtain her licence.
“In this case it is almost Kafkaesque, based on the correspondence I have seen between this applicant and the Department. This person's consultant, a person who adheres to the most rigorous professional standards, made the application and did the harvest plan for her.
“After years interacting with the forestry service, and this consultant is a forester himself, he is now scratching his head and saying he cannot understand why this applicant is not getting her licence. This sums up the situation. Can the Minister of State understand the frustration of organisations like SEEFA, when their representatives are telling her they are selling saplings to Scotland, but they cannot put saplings in the ground here?
“I will go back to this woman of whom I have spoken to tell her I have raised this topic today. Hopefully, she will get her licence as soon as possible because of the Minister of State's intervention. When I ask her, though, whether she will plant trees after this experience, I guarantee that her answer will be: "No, I will never go near forestry again".
Describing his ‘deep frustration’ with the system, Deputy Sherlock noted the ‘massive potential’ that exists for Ireland to help combat climate change, with a target of 8,000 ha.
CONFIDENCE
“There are also private foresters, however, who want to contribute to taking action on climate change, who want to grow native species as well and who want to make their contribution to achieving the target to which the Minister of State referred, but they cannot see how they are going to do that now.
“These are the people we are taking out of the equation because of the system that exists. I refer to the honest-to-goodness farmers who planted a bit of ground. As SEEFA has said, those bits of ground are those farmers' wealth. If confidence among these people is dampened, then it will be very difficult to regenerate it.