Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 May 2026
103. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he is considering any restrictions on commercial forests to plant diverse species and introduce selective tree-felling to maintain forests rather than to allow them to be fully cleared; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35627/26]
View answerThe forestry application process applied by my Department provides a comprehensive legislative and regulatory platform for assessing applications for licences in relation to regulated forestry activities.
A central focus throughout is ensuring that each project, whether it includes commercial species or only species just planted for nature, is compatible with the protection of water, biodiversity, archaeology and the landscape, and that it complies with all relevant national and EU legislation.
Various standards and requirements stipulate how particular operations must be carried out in order to safeguard the environment. Adherence to these, all of which are publicly available, is a condition of any licence issued. Examples include the Environmental Requirements for Afforestation and the Standards for Felling & Reforestation.
One of the objectives of the current Forestry Programme is to plant at least 50% broadleaf species. This is currently being achieved. Additionally, all newly planted forests, include mixed coniferous high forest, require a minimum per-application broadleaved species component of 20% by area.
A second objective of the Forestry Programme is to encourage forest management practices in forests that result in continuous cover forest (CCF) management and forest retention, thereby not having large clearfell operations. This objective is supported by both Forest Type 10 - Continuous Cover Forestry for new forests and the Woodland Improvement Scheme Element 3, for existing forest owners, which provides a fixed Continuous Cover Forestry grant enabling the forest owner to draw up and implement a CCF Conversion Management Plan.
