Forestry group protests outside Offaly TD's office over licensing crisis
The private forestry group SEEFA (the Social, Economic, Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland) is this week staging a series of protests at the offices of Government TDs in an effort to highlight the ongoing crisis in the forestry sector.
The organisation posted a video on social media of one of its representatives, Seamus Egan of Axe Forestry, outside the Tullamore office of Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen.
"We're calling on Deputy Cowen, Minister (Pippa) Hackett and their Government colleagues to make an intervention, to meet the forestry industry," said Mr Egan in the video.
"Something needs to happen here very quickly as the industry is basically going down the tubes."
SEEFA is an alliance of private industry professionals who are urging the Government to help maintain employment for more than 12,000 people in a sector which it said had been "devastated" by a backlog in the granting of afforestation and felling licenses.
SEEFA said it was seeking direct intervention from the Department of the Taoiseach, on the basis that all other options had failed.
Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill, Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, commented, "We have seriously missed our targets in the programme for Government on afforestation. We are 15,000 behind target on afforestation in the last five years, and if those trees had to be planted in their lifetime they would have sequestered 5.4 million tonnes of carbon.
"We have really missed an opportunity to benefit the rural economy and in our fight against climate change. Our failure to issue licenses and our failure to plant trees for afforestation is haunting us and will continue to haunt us in the years ahead because we can't reclaim that lost time."
SEEFA said over 1,000 afforestation applications and thousands of felling and road licence applications were still awaiting a decision, adding that this was having a severe social, economic and environmental impact.
"Forest owners cannot plant their land, manage their forests or sell their timber. For many owners, this is their pension or the manner to pay for education for their children. The implications of this crisis will be felt for many years to come," the organisation stated.