COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, October 14, 2024

QUESTION NO.44

QUESTION: Councillor J. Sinnott

To ask the Chief Executive for a report on the allocation of €1.5M in the 2024 budget to address outstanding road, footpath and laneway maintenance as well as repairs and legacy tree and hedge management issues across the County.

REPLY:

A laneway cleaning programme has been implemented on the laneways in the Dublin 12 and Palmerstown areas, this programme of work has covered in excess of 20 km of laneways and will soon be completed.  It has involved the removal of illegally dumped items followed by the sweeping of the laneways to remove any litter, debris and vegetation including weeds.  Finally, all areas have been treated for further weed growth.

A substantial additional provision was made in the 2024 revenue budget for tree maintenance and this has enabled a much increased programme of tree maintenance to be carried out this year.  To the end of August a total of 6,417 trees have been pruned, 666 trees have been removed and 2,297 trees have been planted.  By year end these numbers are expected to increase to 10,000 trees pruned along with 1,000 trees removed and 3,500 trees planted and this represents approximately a 33% increase in activity over other recent years. 

The hedge maintenance programme implemented by Public Realm involves once per year cutting of hedges in general except those within parks which do not conflict with pedestrians or cyclists and these are cut once every two or three years.  Locations in proximity to footpaths and cycletracks are currently being identified where two cuts per year are required and arrangements are being made to carry out two cuts on these, one between September and December 2024 and the second between January and February 2025.

With regards to the footpath and road repairs, we undertook a significant area of repair in the laneways around Palmerstown this year. Works in these areas are quite complex due to the difficulty with access, this is resulting in a much higher cost per sqm than what we see with our normal footpath repairs.