Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 February 2023
288. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will detail the concerns of the European Commission over failures in Ireland’s forestry SEA report of October 2022, if any; if he will outline his proposals to address these concerns; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9326/23]
View answerThe Forest Strategy Implementation Plan is subject to an ongoing Strategic Environmental Assessment/Appropriate Assessment (SEA/AA) process. As part of this process, the draft Plan containing the proposed Forestry Programme 2023-2027 was published on the 18th October 2022 for a six-week period of public consultation. Forestry stakeholders and the public were encouraged to take part in this significant consultation process and more than 150 submissions on the Plan were received. My Department is currently collating and integrating feedback from these submissions to help inform the final version.
Correspondence issued from the Commission to my Department in November 2022 which raised concerns with the SEA Report for the draft Forest Strategy Implementation Plan which was published in October 2022. These concerns related to environmental issues and a response has issued from my Department directly addressing these points.
As the Deputy is aware, the Forestry Programme 2023-2027 also requires state aid to implement and the SEA/AA process is a critical step in the process of securing State Aid approval from the European Commission. Department officials are currently engaging intensively with the European Commission with a view to securing full state aid approval as soon as possible.
