Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 60b:

In page 19, to delete lines 9 and 10 and substitute the following:“ “urban area” means any area that the Minister prescribes for the purposes of this section and an area that comprised a town or borough under the Local Government Act 2001 before the amendment of that Act by the Local Government Reform Act 2014 may, without prejudice to the Minister’s power to prescribe an area comprising a similar or greater conurbation for those purposes, be prescribed for the purposes of this definition.”.

The recent abolition of town councils by the Local Government Reform Act 2014 means that we can no longer rely on the definition of urban areas as identified in the text. The rationale for having such an exemption for trees within urban areas, which is primarily based on public safety concerns, remains valid despite the abolition of these areas. For this reason it is proposed to allow the Minister to use the former description of an urban area to describe areas that will be exempt from the felling licence requirement. This does not involve any change of policy and merely facilitates the continued exemption of trees in urban areas from the felling licence regime.

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