*Photograph: Joe Buckley
SHANNON’s population is ageing and so are its trees, a county councillor pointed out.
Cllr Tony Mulcahy (FG) requested Clare County Council to outline what budget it has in place for the removal of trees and replanting this autumn.
Senior executive engineer in the Shannon MD, Tom Mellett confirmed an allocation of €10,000 had been allocated for hedge cutting. “In general, the removal or trimming of dangerous trees is funded through our discretionary funding which covers the bulk of all our works outside of our annual roads programme”.
In the region of €20,000 was spent, the bulk of which was on planting native species through the Coill Beag project. “We have also incurred costs of €26,000 from January 2023 to now in relation to tree removal and limbing”.
Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting of the Shannon MD, Cllr Mulcahy felt the figures set aside were inadequate. He recalled one instance in Cronan where a truck arrived with 200 trees and men just went around with shovels as part of a completely disorganised approach.
Residents of the town, many of whom are ageing have felt the brunt of this while pointing out that a woman in her eighties has been robbed of natural light in her back garden over the past twenty years due to the growth of three to four trees across her property.
He felt a replacement programme would be a good step but believed a lot of the trees need to be removed. He said that poplar trees are “an absolute disaster” and that a lot of them had been planted with the intention that they would suck up water. He commented, “there is a serious tree problem in the town”.
Seconding the proposal, Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF) agreed that the matter is causing a problem in the town. She admitted it is commonly flagged by residents and praised retired councillor, Gerry Flynn (IND) who suggested a one-off budget be created to deal with the issue. She said her preference would be to manage the problem rather than to remove trees.
Excessive height of trees is a further problem when it comes to street lighting, Cllr Michael Begley (IND) flagged while Cllr Pat O’Gorman (FF) noted the amount of trees growing through paths and lawns.
