Sir, – The inadequacy of current forestry data was recognised by the announcement of the formation of a Forest Statistics Liaison Group in 2015, as reporting of forest statistics to the two Eurostat data collections was inadequate.
Furthermore, according to National Council for Forest Research and Development’s 2018 Forest Policy Review Group Report, “There are no national statistics on employment in the forest sector.”
Details of the Forest Statistics Liaison Group are given on the CSO website. It states under “frequency of meetings” that, “The Liaison Group meets at least annually”. Its existence was confirmed by a Central Statistics Office internal customer service meeting of September, 24th, 2019, as one of the CSO’s “liaison groups”.
A recent request under access to information on the environment for the minutes said that this committee had never been established and had never met.
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Perhaps before any decisions are made as to the future of the regulation of the industry, the Minister for Agriculture would ensure that we have reliable and up-to-date statistics in front of us? – Yours, etc,
TONY LOWES,
Friends of the
Irish Environment,
Eyeries,
Co Cork.