Forestry grinding to a halt!

FORESTRY work in many parts of Galway and the western region is grinding to a halt with mills facing into a crisis due to lack of supplies, a West of Ireland TD has warned this week.

According to Roscommon-Galway TD, Michael Fitzmaurice, the new Forestry Amendment Bill will not ‘on its own’ solve what he described as the current logjam of applications to fell trees.

“This Bill on its own will not solve everything. As it stands, there are up on 2,000 applications waiting to be processed by the Forestry Service.

“While the Bill will make changes, which will impact on how new applications are dealt with, other work will have to be carried out to clear the current backlog.

“Unless changes are made to the current procedures and protocols that are followed when dealing with applications, the sector will continue to be suffocated by red tape,” said Deputy Fitzmaurice.

He said that in terms of the sawmills in the region – and also the construction industry – the situation had now gone extremely serious in terms of accessing supplies.

According to Deputy Fitzmaurice, the root of the problem goes back to the Habitats Directive ‘signed up to’ by then Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins.

“For instance, despite it not being enshrined in law, every planner adheres to the 15km buffer zone rule. Ireland has walked itself into a cul-de-sac by bringing in the likes of the Habitats Directive, which is destroying this country bit-by-bit,” said Deputy Fitzmaurice.

Galway IFA Forestry Representative, Enda Monaghan, told the Farming Tribune, that the planning holdups as regards carrying out normal forestry work like planting, thinning, roadway construction and felling was now being stalled by planning issues.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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