Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Senator Cummins's comments. I have personal experience of not just disabled parking but parking in general where local authorities have allowed people to go in and cut down 200 or 300 year old trees to create a car park. In one instance, they did not really need to cut down the tree. It could have been left at the side because cutting it down did not provide any more car parking spaces anyway. There seems to be this idea of gutting and clear felling. It is no longer acceptable to think that we can cut things down that take hundreds of years to grow. It is good that we are having this debate but I feel that the local authorities need stronger proscriptions regarding what they can do and will allow to be done. We have a planning application at the moment for a nursing home, which is badly needed in Ennis, but where it is to be located will require the felling of many mature trees. I cannot find any way to stop them doing it. The local authority does not seem to have taken the matter into consideration. We know there is a climate and biodiversity emergency. We can no longer allow local authorities or private design in ways that do not avoid, where possible, the destruction of our natural habitats.