David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for selecting this matter and the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, for being here. I raised this issue last May with the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan. At the time, he told me the implementation of legislation on the management of tree and hedge-cutting operations was a matter for local authorities and landowners. The problem is that the countryside is full of dead ash trees, many of which are by roadsides. Last winter, I saw that a number of them had fallen down under heavy winds, storms and so on. This posed serious risk to people using the roadways. Since then, I have noticed many more of them around the country. One can see the dead trees in the hedgerows with other the trees. They are extraordinarily dangerous.

I am delighted the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, is here given that his Department published a guide for landowners to managing roadside trees in 2021. It is very clearly stated in the publication that dead trees should be felled. Full stop. They are extraordinarily dangerous. If a tree falls down on a road at night, someone could drive into it.

I do not want to be here next winter bemoaning the fact that action was not taken and awareness was not raised on this issue. I do not want to be here, or someone else to be here, asking why we did not raise awareness or why the local authorities did not take action, identify the trees and contact the landowners to tell them it is their responsibility to take down these trees.

Where lies the issue with regard to insurance? If I am driving along a road, a tree falls on top of my car, I get badly injured and my car is badly damaged, where does responsibility lie? Will the insurance companies stand over an issue with respect to trees that are obviously dangerous and could fall down and kill or seriously injure somebody? This matter affects areas all over the country. It relates not only to ash dieback but also Dutch elm disease, which has made an appearance recently.

The Minister for Transport says it is a matter for the local authorities. The Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, has responsibility for farm safety issues and is doing a great job on that. His Department has issued a guide for landowners but the missing piece here is nudging landowners to take action. We need to take action before it is too late. We do not want a Deputy asking the Taoiseach on Leaders' Questions next spring why the Government did not do something about this. I am raising it now. I have seen trees that have already fallen, the damage they can cause and the dangers they pose. I notice more and more of them around the country. Will the Minister of State and his Government colleagues instruct local authorities to carry out surveys and if trees are found that are obviously dead and could easily fall in a gale, that they notify the landowner that they have to be removed?

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There might be a cost involved here and this could be a serious one if the tree is very large. This work does not come cheap. If a landowner has a whole roadside full of dead trees, it could cost €1,000 per tree to take them down. Many issues arise here, then, but the most important one is that involving health and safety and life and death. This is a life-and-death issue. I know the Minister of State in his own work in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is really concerned about safety issues. I will not say this is a real live safety issue because the trees are dead, but it should be addressed as a matter of extreme urgency before the winter sets in and we have bad weather and storms where we will see many more of these trees coming down on roads and cars. God forbid that we see people injured or worse.

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Stanton for raising this important issue. I am taking this Topical Issue this evening on behalf of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, who is unable to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to update Members of the Dáil on the potential dangers posed by dead trees, especially those adjacent to public roads, and the need to remove any trees at risk of falling and causing death or injury, as the Deputy has clearly outlined.

With regard to this specific issue, first, I must highlight that the relevant legislation on the danger of trees on public roads is the Roads Act 1993, which comes under the remit of the Department of Transport. Section 70 of the Roads Act sets out the responsibility of landowners to take all reasonable steps to ensure that trees, hedges and other vegetation growing on their land are not, or could not become, a danger to people using a public road or interfere with the safe use of a public road or the maintenance of a public road. This responsibility includes "the preservation, felling, cutting, lopping, trimming or removal of such tree, shrub, hedge or other vegetation" in question. As such, the implementation of any legislation and the removal of dead or dying trees is a matter for local authorities and landowners and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has no role in this regard.

Second, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government has responsibility at central government level in relation to the local government system generally and for certain specific functional or service areas such as planning, housing and fire services. However, responsibility in relation to policy, funding, legislation and general oversight and accountability at national level in respect of a number of functions of local authorities rests with other relevant Departments. Traditionally, this has applied in aspects of functions such as agriculture, education, health and welfare. This multilateral reporting relationship has extended to embrace functions such as roads and traffic, enterprise support, tourism and certain piers and harbours, as well as more recently rural affairs and environmental matters. In short, local authorities now perform functions across a wide range of sectors that come within the remit of a number of different Departments and central agencies and not just the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. This is the case with regard to the question raised by the Deputy and the legislative and policy framework relating to the dangers of trees on public roads and the protection of the public in this respect.

That was the response that was given to me by the Department, but I completely agree with the points raised by the Deputy. In relation to the responsibility that lies with my Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, my colleague, the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, issued guidance to landowners in terms of their responsibilities about two years ago. I think it was then but I will have to check. The responsibility here, though, primarily rests with landowners. The Deputy referred to dead trees in his contribution, but there are many trees that are technically still alive but that, through the impacts of Dutch elm disease or other diseases, may still have leaves on them at this time of the year but actually be very vulnerable. I know from home that when trees lose a bough, there can be a situation where if water can get into the middle of a tree, it can become very unstable and end up being partly rotten but still technically alive and with leaves on it. It is incumbent on all landowners, then, to recognise their responsibility, especially concerning trees on roads that create this type of hazard, and ensure their trees are sound. They must not only do this via visual inspection but through a more physical inspection too. It is not just a case that a tree may not have any leaves on it and look dead. Other trees may be dangerous as well and landowners do have the primary responsibility in terms of ensuring that a tree in a roadside verge on their land is not a hazard and does not fall on that road and either hit vehicles or act as an obstruction that could be crashed into afterwards.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for his response. It is a bit funny because, in one sense, everyone here is responsible and no one is responsible. This issue has moved from the Department of Transport to the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and to the local authorities. Ultimately, this responsibility will fall back on the landowners if an accident does occur. This is certainly going to happen because there are so many dead trees out there. They are dead. There are no leaves or bark on them. They are just dead.

We are in the middle of climate change and if we have more impacts from it and more severe storms next winter, then we will see quite a number of these trees coming down. Many are owned by farmers and landowners. These trees could actually fall on farmers themselves. They could fall during the middle of the dark nights and people could drive into them. It is, therefore, an extremely dangerous situation. I did ask the question earlier concerning insurance. If someone is aware or should be aware that a tree is dead and poses a danger, is he or she covered by insurance if it falls on somebody or would he or she be cleaned out if a case were to be taken in this regard and it was proved that person should have known the tree in question was dead and reasonable precautions should have been taken and the tree removed? The cost of taking down these trees is also quite expensive. It is also a dangerous job because if a tree is dead and rotten and an attempt is made to try to knock it down, it ends up being more dangerous than a healthy tree.

I ask the Minister of State, therefore, to go back to his Departmental and his ministerial colleagues across the Departments to emphasise the danger of this issue across the country. I am not sure which Department is responsible here, because they are all saying they are not, but if a tragedy occurs, and we hope it does not, but if it does, it will be raised in here and fingers will be pointed at Ministers and questions will be asked about why they did not do something. Everyone will be saying we should have done something. I am raising this issue now because I do not want to see this happening. I want to see every bit of caution being taken to take these trees out because they are a danger. I do not want to see any injuries or fatalities because of this situation in the coming winter or beyond. I again, therefore, ask the Minister of State to go back to his colleagues, notify the local authorities to go out and identify these trees and then notify the landowners to go out and take them down. I thank the Minister of State.

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I do not have a specific answer for the Deputy. I think the answer is in terms of insurance but I do not have it in my response here and I do not want to put something on the record of the House that is just a gut feeling and what my understanding is without being 100% sure. Again, to go back to the original response, landowners do have the primary responsibility. The Deputy spoke about trees that are clearly dead. We are going to have a growing problem, pardon the pun, of ash dieback being present in individual ash trees on the roadside. My Department has responsibility for ash plantations, but the majority of individual ash trees in hedgerows will die by ash dieback and will be impacted in this way around the country. Again, this is a major challenge for farmers and landowners.

To return to the point, the local authorities definitely have a role here. I agree with the concerns the Deputy raised about when the responsibility for something lies in one area, it can end up being the case that it becomes everybody's responsibility and no one's. We cannot let this happen. This is something that will be a growing issue and will need to be worked on interdepartmentally. Ultimately, however, the primary responsibility remains with the landowner and this will not change. From this perspective, I imagine, landowners who talk to an insurance broker will get a clear direction very quickly if they have trees that are showing signs of decay, are unstable, have a lean, have lost boughs and water ingress may have weakened their cores. This is a situation where if the farmer or landowner did not act upon it, he or she could be liable, I would imagine. I am trying not to speculate here because it is not my role to do that here.

The Deputy has highlighted a significant issue. The local authorities have a key role to play. I know of instances where area engineers from the roads sections of county councils have approached landowners and said they were not happy about the look of some of the trees and asked that private consultants be engaged to check them and decide with a contractor to remove them where they are hazardous.