COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF LUCAN AREA COMMITTEE

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

QUESTION NO. 5

QUESTION: Councillor P. Gogarty

That this Council further to last month's discussion on its revised operation for the collection of Christmas trees, looks at providing security staff for the Thursday after the official collection commencement at Beech Park, Lucan, given that the fire started last year was on a Thursday night; and also, given further correspondence from residents, to consider a number of collections before the 6th of January, as many trees are reported to have been left on the green before this date.

REPLY:

The dates for the Christmas Tree Recycling Programme as advertised on the Councils website and in local media are from Wednesday 6th January to Friday 15th January 2016 inclusive. While it is found that the majority of Christmas trees are recycled during this period it is acknowledged that some households do like to start early and indeed some households leave it to late January/February before decisions are made regarding Christmas tree recycling. The recycling programme has been running for numerous years and those sites where residents decide dump Christmas trees prior to the official recycling programme commencing are visited on a daily basis in the days leading up to start of the programme. These locations are not new, the experience of removing illegally dumped Christmas trees is known and the sites are target for clean-up based on past experiences. Beech Park is one site which is visited daily in the lead up to the programme commencement date. This approach will continue for 2016. Nevertheless, the Council would prefer to see residents availing of this service at no additional cost to them, during the official period and refrain from illegal dumping outside of the specified dates.

As previously advised, sites which tend to be busier are visited on a daily basis and if possible a return visit is made to remove any trees which have been dumped during the day. Beech Park was the second busiest site in the Lucan Area in 2015 and every effort will be made to visit this site twice each day during the recycling programme. With this arrangement in place there are no proposal to extend the pilot security initiative to include Thursday night.