114 hectares of afforestation so far this year

A new forestry programme to 2027 will be put in place this year, subject to state aid approval from the European Commission.

There have been 114 hectares of forestry planted so far in 2023.

To date this year, nearly 1,120 hectares have been approved for planting in 2023 under new interim arrangements in place, Minister of State Pippa Hackett told the Dáil on Thursday.

She said that this planting is currently taking place, "and it is also important to note that non-grant-aided replanting, or reforestation, continues to take place every year, as is evidenced in the recent national forestry inventory".

There is a target in place for Ireland to plant 8,000 hectares annually, and Ms Hackett said that delivering this target "may not be enough, in the future we may have to go to much higher levels".

New afforestation planting in 2022 totalled 2,273 hectares; 2,016 hectares in 2021; 2,434 in 2020; and 3,550 in 2019.

New programme

A new forestry programme to 2027 will be put in place this year, subject to state aid approval from the European Commission. In the meanwhile, as approval is awaited, interim schemes have been put in place by the Department of Agriculture.

"New planting numbers have decreased in recent years due to various factors, including Covid-19, licensing issues and the wait-and-see attitude adopted by some applicants in the last years of the outgoing [forestry] programme in anticipation of the higher grant rates that are now available under the new programme the department announced late last year," Ms Hackett said.

"The substantial issue with licensing has been resolved and I launched an interim afforestation scheme to enable those applicants with valid approvals to opt into a scheme offering the new grant and premium rates contained in the draft forestry programme to bridge the lacuna between the old and new programmes."

Fit for purpose

Ms Hackett said she expects that the proposed increases announced for the new programme will encourage increased uptake in afforestation numbers and that the "ambitious targets" of the new forestry programme can be met over the next five years.

She said that work is being done to ensure the new programme is one "fit for purpose" for farmers.

"We are doing everything we can to get this programme off the ground from within my department. We engaged extensively on this with the public in advance over the past year and a half," Ms Hackett said. 

"Forestry is not a matter of quickly doing it and that is it. Forestry is a long-term, permanent land use change. We have to get it right."