"For far too long, local forestry workers in Co Cavan have been unable to do their jobs." That's according to local councillor Shane P O'Reilly who met earlier today with the North East Forestry Group. According to Cllr O'Reilly, it's the department's intention that trees which have already fell due to Storm Eowyn will now require a felling license to be processed.
Speaking to Northern Sound, The Independent Ireland Representative said the move was "nonsense" and an example of what has went on over the last number of years leading to current issues with powerlines in Co Cavan. As a result, Cllr O'Reilly has wrote to the Minister for Agriculture, Martin Heydon along with the Minister of State for Agriculture Michael Healy Rae to ask that such "ludacris suggestions be shelved immediately" for a period of six months. According to the Mullagh man, this would ensure that workers who need to remove trees urgently can and if they need to fell more when doing so that an amnesty would be introduced to ensure that this work can be carried out.
"Over the last number of years thousands of felling licences have been applied for and unfortunately each and every one of them has been objected to and the situation is we have seen what this has caused over the last number of days were so many trees have fallen on powerlines and the main reason being is that both our national forestry service Coillte and our private forestry owners such as the North East Forestry Group have not been allowed to obtain felling licences therefore this was left wide open for a storm to happen that would cause all these problems. We have a situation were forestry workers are being hampered with and stopped from dong their work by people who are living in the leafy suburbs of our capital and other places who have no idea the problems and issues that are happening due to the non-felling of trees."
