Michael Conaghan (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Dublin City Council gets involved in issues of this nature, particularly where the householder is elderly. Staff from the council's landscape service will call to a house and suggest to the householder that a tree be cut back. Local authorities are already taking action to address dangerous cases such as those to which the petitions refer but they should be given formal powers to intervene. Local authorities have a presence in every community through their local offices, their staff are well known to local people and they enjoy considerable credibility. When their staff call to houses to raise all sorts of issues, many of which may not be within their formal jurisdiction, people tend to take notice. It would not be a major task to produce legislation which gave local authorities formal power to intervene in the circumstances described. In the first instance, they should advise homeowners that a tree's height creates an impending danger. They could then suggest various courses of action, as they do already in cases where the homeowner is elderly.

At the moment some homeowners are unable to do the work themselves. There is a kind of practice which could be built on and formalised.