COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, May 11, 2015

QUESTION NO.21

QUESTION: Councillor D. O'Donovan

To ask the Chief Executive how many staff members are on the tree pruning crew and how many trees are pruned within an average week?

REPLY:

The delivery of the Council's current 2015 Tree Maintenance Programme is being undertaken by up to six seasonal tree maintenance crews operating across the county over the winter period from November - February along with one all year round tree maintenance crew.  Each crew comprises an average of 4 staff.  The seasonal tree maintenance crews are reassigned to grass cutting during the growing season.  The numbers of staff that are assigned to tree maintenance during the winter period varies from week to week in tandem with other Public Realm operational commitments.  During the month of January, the majority of staff assigned to tree maintenance are diverted to servicing Christmas tree recycling across the county.  Other factors also impacting on the availability of staff for tree maintenance include staff leave arrangements, weather conditions, incidences of snow or windstorms and the consequent emergency responses by Council staff.  

In addition to street tree maintenance, the seasonal tree maintenance crews undertake a significant programme of hedge maintenance which is repeated on an annual cycle, as well as maintenance of shrubberies on open space areas and there is one specialist crew dedicated to tree stump removals.  The all year round tree maintenance crew is dedicated primarily to the pruning and removal of street trees.  This crew have been trained and continue to be upskilled to a high level of specialist arboricultural training to enable them complete tree maintenance operations which are currently beyond the skills capacity of the seasonal crews.  By their nature, such operations tend to be more time consuming than routine tree maintenance often involving large size trees which require climbing and complex branch removal or sectional felling procedures.  The all year tree maintenance crew currently comprises a core staff of 4 people augmented as required for specific jobs by additional Public Realm staff. In addition a second all year round tree maintenance crew is being put in place, currently we are identifying staff and getting them trained up as required.  Where specialist arboricultural skills are required, and depending on the size of the tree and the complexity of the job as well as operational constraints of the site, the numbers of trees pruned per day can average between 3-5 trees.  Where the tree pruning or removal operation is of a more routine nature, an average of 10-15 trees per day is pruned by a crew.