It’s time for a new strategy for how the council deals with trees, councillors say

It’s time for a new strategy for how the council deals with the city’s trees, Dublin city councillors said at their September monthly meeting.

They were discussing a motion from Fianna Fáil Councillor Tom Brabazon calling for “a total review of the trees policy forthwith”.

The motion also called on council Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare to “ensure that a [tree] maintenance programme will be delivered without delay”.

Councillors from across parties and areas of the city spoke in support of Brabazon’s motion, saying they’d heard loads from residents about tree-related problems while canvassing ahead of the June local elections.

Trees are great, but they can also damage houses, footpaths, and underground utilities, contribute to people getting hurt, and prevent residents from installing solar panels, councillors said. So the council needs to properly “maintain” them, they said.

There needs to be a clear, up-to-date policy saying under what conditions trees will be pruned, or even removed, so councillors can point to that when residents ask for help with tree-related problems, councillors said.

And council managers and staff need to provide clear information and timelines about when they plan to assess and address tree-related problems, councillors said.

“I’m not kind of siding with members of the public that want to kind of have loads of trees removed, that’s certainly not my agenda,” Brabazon said. But “I think the whole area of trees is a huge source of frustration with members of the public”.

Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon said at the 2 September meeting that he supports a review of the council’s tree strategy.

Although, while canvassing in Dublin 8, and introducing himself as representing the Green Party “the main thing that people seem to say [about trees] is they want more of them”, he said.

“I know there are problems, but I’d be wary of going too far down the path of chopping things down because they cause hassle or some issue with footpaths,” Pidgeon said.

Assistant Chief Executive Frank D’Arcy said he had “no issue” with reviewing the current tree strategy (that was in the works anyway), while keeping in mind that the council’s policy, set out in the development plan, “is to increase tree canopy for the city”.

He agreed with councillors’ points about tree maintenance. “In the context of programme delivery, everybody’s completely right”, he said. He asked them to support an increase in funding for tree maintenance in the budget.

Brabazon said he would, and suggested that the council refer the issue to a committee, where they could get into the details of overhauling the city’s tree strategy. His fellow councillors agreed.

Tree policy

There are more than 100,000 trees in parks and on streets in the city, according to the council’s budget for 2024.

D’Arcy, the assistant chief executive, said that as part of “the maintenance programme we assess, survey and record over 4,000 street tree and park trees every year and this inventory informs our annual programme of works”.

The council also has “prioritisation works and a prioritisation programme consisting of crown reduction, crown cleaning, and crown lifting”, he said.

The council had a tree strategy for 2016 to 2020, which talks about the council’s policies on planting and maintaining trees.

Its budget for 2021 said the tree strategy would be reviewed and updated that year. The budget for 2022 said “the tree strategy review” would be completed and published that year. So did the budget for 2023. And for 2024.

A council spokesperson said in July of this year that although the time period in the title of the existing tree strategy has passed, “The policies and objectives are still relevant”.

However, “The City Tree Strategy is under review and will be re-published early 2025,” the spokesperson said.

Council managers should have updated the tree strategy much sooner, independent Councillor Mannix Flynn said at the September monthly meeting.

“The fact that this programme was out of its date in 2020 and therefore it’s not fit for purpose at the moment, how that happened in the administration of Dublin City Council I think is alarming,” he said.

Although the council hasn’t updated its tree strategy in recent years, it has increased its tree maintenance budget. It was increased in 2019,  and 2022, and 2023 and in 2024, according to council budgets for those years.

These documents do not say how much the budget for tree care was in each year, and the council hasn’t responded to queries sent Monday asking for these figures.

The council also has not responded to a query sent Monday on how much more the council feels the tree maintenance budget needs to increase so that it can provide the level of service it would like to provide.

Tree problems

Introducing his motion at the September monthly meeting, Brabazon said that one of the reasons he was calling for the council’s trees policy to be reviewed was due to “experience of conflicts between different policies”.

For example, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland “are trying to promote solar panels on roofs to provide alternative power sources etctera and our trees policy conflicts with that”, said Brabazon, who represents Donaghmede.

“If a tree overshadows a solar panel we’re not in a position, in terms of that policy, to do anything about it – and it seems to me to be ludicrous,” he said.

Sinn Féin Councillor Edel Moran, who represents Artane-Whitehall, and Labour Party Councillor Alison Field, who represents Clontarf, also said they’d heard from residents who wanted to install solar panels but had roofs that were overshadowed by trees.

“And when you’re asking for this to be looked at, you’re basically told no,” Moran said.

Several councillors said trees can create dangers for residents.

“So much of our time is taken up by so many of our residents with issues with the trees, whether it’s the sap from the trees, whether it’s the roots coming over the kerb,” said Social Democrats Councillor Aishling Silke.

“We had an incident there recently of an 82-year-old woman who fell over the roots with fractured legs and fractured arms,” said Silke, who represents Artane-Whitehall.

Sinn Féin Councillor Janice Boylan said “There is a need for trees, we absolutely do need them, we absolutely do love them, I’m a big tree person myself.”

But they also cause problems, Boylan said. “I’m not just talking about small problems, I’m talking about structural problems, I’m talking about problems where people can’t open their windows for some fresh air because the trees are actually that close to the front of their window,” she said.

“I had a lady contact me today in relation to a tree – the roots have actually grown down and affected her water supply, they busted through the pipes,” said Boylan, who represents the north inner-city.

Fine Gael Councillor Naoise Ó Muirí, who represents Clontarf, said trees “serve a very special place in our urban environment but there are times when they do cause issues and frustrations”.

Responses to tree problems

Some councillors also said they want a clear policy on trees they can refer to when residents come to them with problems.

“Citizens need to be clear on what the policy is, because we’re constantly asked to address this and it’s very difficult to explain the policy and the practice of the council,” said Sinn Féin Councillor Micheál MacDonncha, who represents Donaghmede.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Deirdre Heney, who represents Clontarf, said “People really do need to understand that there really is a strategy or a policy there, whereby if they feel there is a problem they feel they can contact somebody who’s going to be able to tell them those trees will be maintained at a certain period of time”.

Cieran Perry, an independent councillor representing Cabra-Glasnevin, said “it’s not clear what our policy is on trees in a lot of scenarios”.

Some also said they weren’t happy with the responses they got when they brought a tree-related problem to the council.

“Anytime I make a representation, I may receive a vague answer saying that it will be added to whenever pruning is done etcetera, etcetera,” said Fine Gael Councillor Declan Flanagan, who represents Artane-Whitehall.

Perry, the independent councillor, said it’s not always clear from the responses they get whether the council is going to do anything, or if so what and when.

“The requests we put in, we get back a relatively vague answer to say that it’ll be done whenever we have resources or if required,” he said. “I think we need to be more precise than that so people understand what can be done about damaged trees,” he said.

“And if there is a request about a healthy tree it’s simply explained to them that a healthy tree needs to be left alone,” Perry said.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Keith Connolly, who represents Ballymun-Finglas, said in his area he thinks there’s “a resource issue”.

“We have a very good parks team but they need more staff,” Connolly said. “Also, stuff is contracted out, which means no responsibility.”