Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice has warned that a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Agriculture is inevitable if positive changes do not become apparent in the forestry sector.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the matter, the representative for the Roscommon-Galway constituency said: \u201cThe forestry sector continues to be hampered by a lack of real progress around delays in dealing with licence applications for afforestation, forest roads and felling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is despite all of the measures supposedly taken by the department \u2013 including hiring more ecologists \u2013 to date to alleviate these problems, which have come to the fore in recent months.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at our forestry planting targets and where we are at the moment, there is no chance we will even come close to the 8,000ha target. We are on a downward spiral and if swift action isn\u2019t taken, the sector will crumble \u2013 as it is already on its knees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minister and his officials need to come out and clarify how the sector has been let slip into such a state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have all heard how more and more ecologists have been hired and progress is slowly being made. But we need to see real results; the future of the sector and people\u2019s livelihoods are at risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf stakeholders do not see significant positive changes in the short-term, then a motion of no confidence in the minister and the officials over the sector will be inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatience amongst stakeholders has run out; they need to start seeing results,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

For further information contact Michael Fitzmaurice at 086-1914565\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice has warned that a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Agriculture is inevitable if positive changes do not become apparent in the forestry sector….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3441,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440\/revisions\/3441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelfitzmaurice.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}