Ireland’s Forest Crisis Continues to Grow

According to the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), Ireland’s forest industry remains in crisis. Delays in issuing licenses needed to plant, harvest, and transport trees to facilities for processing have been ongoing for over three years. The bottleneck is hitting house building, slowing the supply of timber and forcing many to import lumber. It has also contributed to the rise in the costs of new homes.

This has occurred despite commitments made by the Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and Minister of State, Pippa Hackett in early 2021 to tackle the problem. The CIF says that current government figures indicate no signs of measurable improvement.

Foresters note that the problem threatens 12,000 jobs and prevents them from meeting domestic needs and cashing in on export demand. “We have enough trees to easily cater for both, but the department is not issuing licenses to cut them fast enough.”

As far as replanting, industry spokespeople say that the afforestation approval level is not great enough to replace harvested trees. They noted that last year, department officials set a “soft” target of issuing enough licenses to plant on 4,500 hectares, but the actual total by the end of December was 4,255. That does not sound bad until you stack it against the official Government aim of 8,000 hectares annually. The soft target is little more than half what the state believes it will need in the future.

Mark McAuley, director of Forest Industries Ireland, notes there are almost 900 afforestation licenses awaiting department approval, which takes 15 months on average. He argues for an “overhaul of the regulatory system.”