In a recent series of parliamentary questioning, Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Agriculture, Food, and the Marine Charlie McConalogue TD made a series of enquiries about Ireland’s forestry industry.
Deputy McConalogue posed a number of questions to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed TD, about the scale of the forestry industry in the country.
He requested that Minister Creed provided a breakdown of the percentage of agricultural land in each county that has been planted with forestry to date.
In response to these requests, Michael Creed provided the following statistics on the percentage of agricultural land that has been afforested to date.
Agricultural land afforested to date:
- Carlow – 9.4%;
- Cavan – 9.3%;
- Clare – 17.2%;
- Cork – 12.1%;
- Donegal – 11.4%;
- Dublin – 6.5%;
- Galway – 9.9%;
- Kerry – 12.1%;
- Kildare – 6.1%;
- Kilkenny – 9.6%;
- Laois – 15.4%;
- Leitrim – 18.9%;
- Limerick – 10.4%;
- Longford – 8.4%;
- Louth – 2.9%;
- Mayo – 9.2%;
- Meath – 5.7%;
- Monaghan – 4.6%;
- Offaly – 14.7%;
- Roscommon – 11.1%;
- Sligo – 11.4%;
- Tipperary – 11.8%;
- Waterford – 14.7%;
- Westmeath – 8.2%;
- Wexford – 6.2%;
- Wicklow – 17.9%.
Planting targets
Following this, Minister Creed was then questioned on planting targets for schemes and grants. The Fianna Fáil Deputy asked for data to be provided on the number of hectares planted each year and the target number of hectares to be planted in those years.
The information provided in response is as follows:
|
Scheme |
2018 Target |
2018 Actual |
% of target planted |
2019 Target |
2019 Actual |
% of target planted |
|
Afforestation, ha |
7,205 |
4,025 |
56% |
8,115 |
3,549 |
44% |
|
of which afforestation (GPC1- 8) |
6,215 |
3,649 |
59% |
6,615 |
3,228 |
49% |
|
of which NWS establishment (GPC9 & 10) |
450 |
374 |
83% |
450 |
310 |
69% |
|
of which Agroforestry (GPC11) |
40 |
1 |
2% |
50 |
6.78 |
14% |
|
0f which energy and fibre (GPC12) |
500 |
1 |
0% |
1,000 |
4.01 |
0.40% |
