Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle. Tá sé go maith go bhfuil an deis seo againn agus nach bhfuil an Rialtas ag cur ina choinne seo. Tá súil agam, amach anseo, go mbeidh muid in ann tacú leis le déanamh cinnte de gur reachtaíocht é.

Is mian liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil le roinnt daoine atá tar éis cuidiú liom anseo. Is é teideal an Bhille ná An Bille um Dhíospóidí idir Comharsana (Fásra), 2017, that is, the Neighbour Disputes (Vegetation) Bill 2017. It has been hanging around a while. The issue it relates to has come up continuously. Anybody involved in constituency casework, be it a Deputy, Senator or aspiring candidate, will have come across cases of neighbours falling out over a tree or hedge. One of the earlier iterations of the Oireachtas petitions committee examined this issue and made several recommendations. Afterwards, when nothing happened – it was 2013 – I asked the Library and Research Service to carry out research on how to address the issue and on the approach in our neighbouring states. The service produced a research paper, Overhanging Trees, in 2016 and it is still available from the service for those who are interested. I then worked with the OPLA, namely, with David Hegarty and David Dunne. One of the interesting approaches we took at that stage was to consider how the OPLA could help Members put together legislation. We worked through the legislation in question. Ultimately, it takes a lot from what obtains in England. Our approach is to try to prevent people from having to go to court or from ending up fighting with each other. I am referring to rows and fallings out between neighbours over the extent to which trees have overgrown boundaries or overshadow gardens, thereby preventing the owners of the gardens from enjoying them. It is an issue in urban areas, in particular, but it is not confined to them because I am aware that it also occurs in certain rural areas. The leaves that fall from certain trees, conkers and other material can interfere with neighbours' gardens and whatnot. There is no recourse at present. The Defence Forces can lop or prune trees, as can utility companies and local authorities, where those trees are interfering with public roads and so on. In the case of private property, however, there is no recourse for a citizen to protect his or her space. If trees or bushes are overhanging, neighbours can cut them back on their side. That is a given and we accept it, but if it is done to a large tree, it can undermine it and make it dangerous in itself. If you dig down and remove roots that interfere with your tiled garden, you could undermine the tree and make it dangerous. You would be within your right to dig out the roots and that is the cause of some of the disputes, where the look of the tree is interfered with if somebody cuts back.

I first contested an election in 1987 so I have come across this on several occasions. It is not the be-all and end-all. We have many more important and pressing issues but if you have a tree that is 60 ft high, having been only 20 ft when you moved in first, and the woman next door is a pensioner who does not have the wherewithal to cut it back, what is your recourse? You could bring her to court and force it but that is not what neighbours are meant to do.

The idea is to approach this as in England, namely, by making it a council matter involving mediation. Even if you brought somebody to court, there would be no guarantee that the works would happen. I have dealt with cases of houses in probate and cases in which a house’s owner, be it an absent landlord, a vulture fund or maintenance company that has gone bang, cannot be found. You cannot force them to address an issue of major importance. It is especially an issue if everybody else is out in their gardens enjoying the nice sunshine and having barbecues and you are in a garden overshadowed by trees or very high hedges, with no sunlight getting in. There is no automatic right to sunlight in gardens. There is if you can prove that for over 20 years you had sunlight, but since trees grow continuously you cannot necessarily prove it. Even if you can, it is very difficult to prove you have the right to sunlight in your garden. You have a right to sunlight in your house and trees must not overshadow windows but they can overshadow your garden.

This is one of the big issues when apartment developments are being planned for the city. Most big developers have to produce a daylight survey showing the effects of sunlight at different stages of the year. However, if trees are already in place, you will not necessarily have lost the sunlight. It can be a big issue.

Three or four years ago, after producing this legislation, I dealt with the case of an elderly couple in an inner-city terraced house whose neighbour had three or four trees. She is a bit chaotic. The trees had grown from the 6 ft or 7 ft they were 40 years previously when they were planted into huge monstrosities. The trees' height was bad enough but the couple said that any time they tried to do anything with their garden, the roots would come up and disturb things. The couple were getting very depressed about it and did not necessarily want to have a row with the neighbour or neighbour’s family. They were asking where to go for redress but I was not able to point to anything. Since I published this legislation back in 2017, several people have highlighted the problem. I have seen it come up in the property clinic column in The Irish Times. I have seen letters asking for help in The Irish Times and other papers. The responses point out that while somebody can go to court, there is no guarantee, it can be expensive and the problem could drag on for another five or six years.

After the back-and-forth with the OPLA service, we eventually settled on this legislation, which is in line with what the petitions committee recommended in 2015. It proposed the introduction of legislation dealing with the height and maintenance of trees and hedges and the consideration of an amendment to the environmental protection Act to deal with this. It talked about informing the committee of this approach. The new, amended legislation was to cover height restrictions, which was ruled out by the Law Reform Commission, which also examined this issue. The petitions committee also stated that if attempts have been made by neighbours to resolve issues in advance of going to the local authority, that also should be considered.

Moreover, the Department and the local authority should have the power to investigate the issue and once satisfied, issue sanctions on the offending neighbour to resolve the issue and bring their trees and hedges in line with the required height if that is set out in legislation. If there were to be no compliance, the issue should go to mediation. Should that mediation fail, there should be an option to allow individuals to go before the courts and apply penalties similar to those imposed in the UK.

The legislation I have produced follows some of that procedure. At the end of the day, anybody is entitled to go to court but at the moment, he or she would not have a strong case to stand on. This would at least allow a local authority to set its local standards or allow the Minister for the environment or local government bodies to set minimum standards if that is the approach we take. Mediation is the key. This legislation would place an onus on the local authority to put in place some type of mediation role to try to ensure there are officers in place, whether they are public realm officers or something similar, who would be versed in how to deal with such situations, how to mediate and how to encourage neighbours, which is what we want to do at the end of the day, without starting a row. Neighbours will sometimes fall out just because they get a knock on the door but they will definitely fall out if they are dragged into a formal mediation process or if they are brought to court and forced to act.

We must also consider the circumstances of an elderly person or somebody who cannot afford to loop or prune a tree or whatever else. There must be some way to help such people. I know from personal experience the cost of cutting trees and rolling them back. It is not cheap, especially in a city area when trying to be careful of the damage done to neighbours' properties. I previously dealt with a case where a neighbour got so frustrated that he went into the other person's garden, took out a chainsaw and did a whole load of damage. That person was done for trespassing, criminal damage and everything else, but that is the level of frustration some people experience. I do not know if a fund or charity is suitable but we need to consider some mechanism for the future. That is not provided for in the Bill but there will be cases where the local authority may be required to step in. Most local authorities have some expertise in dealing with overhanging trees because they deal with them on roadsides and footpaths. That is not the key element of this legislation.

The Bill is aimed at tackling some, and not all, of the problems. We cannot solve everybody's problems but at least we can put in place some mechanism by which people can consider how to resolve issues so they do not continuously grow. This approach would be less costly than blocking up our courts. The idea is that local authorities would take on such issues. Local authorities will give out to me for adding to their duties and that is something the State will have to take into account when funding them. The State will have to take into account that this is a new duty that might require extra staff or additional training. We may end up needing people who have full training in mediation and who understand this new law and the other laws relating to environmental protection.

This Bill is in no way an attempt to cut back trees. The more trees that are planted around the country, and the more Irish native trees, the better. Perhaps that is a matter we can consider at another stage. This legislation is intended to help neighbourhoods and neighbours be better than they are at the moment and to stop some disputes. Such disputes only crop up once in a while but when people come into my constituency office to complain about these issues, some of them are consumed by the dispute to such a degree that they are a bit irrational about how they think about approaching the problem. I will leave it at that. Other Deputies may wish to take part.

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