Green TDs protest to save trees from axe

FOUR Green Party TDs chained themselves to trees in Dublin’s O’Connell Street yesterday afternoon in a last-ditch attempt to save landmark trees from the chop.

Deputy Ciarán Cuffe who took part with Dan Boyle, Eamon Ryan and party leader Trevor Sergeant said: "We believe that the cutting down of the O'Connell Street trees is an absolute scandal." They urged the public to protest at the felling to Dublin City manager John Fitzgerald.

While the Greens protest became a big media event, the garda did not intervene during the hour-long protest.

"But if the chainsaws are approaching we would certainly go back again," vowed Mr Cuffe, the party environment spokesperson.

Dublin City Council confirmed that public opposition to its decision to fell the trees, which have adorned the street for a century, is beginning to mount.

The 50 mature London Plane trees are to make way for 200 new, much smaller trees under a four-year rejuvenation plan for the street.

Already a small number of the trees fronting the historic GPO have been given the chop to allow a giant crane hoist the millennium showpiece, a 130m stainless spire - eight times higher than the GPO itself.

Irate citizens, outraged at the loss of what they regard as an integral part of their heritage, vented their upset in calls to Civic Offices' headquarters.

They responded in large numbers after callers to Marian Finucane's radio show urged people to register their disapproval. "We received a number of those calls," said a spokesperson for the council. "Previously we had calls from people who said the street needed rejuvenation and so on. But I think in the main people don't feel they have to register their support. I think it's the people who are against us who feel the need to register in the hope that if enough people ring in that things will be looked at again."

As the city's main street took on an increasingly shabby appearance, the City Fathers agreed in 1998 to the massive revamp. Under the plan, large trees will be planted on the footpaths, which will be widened on both sides of the street, while more closely spaced smaller trees will be planted on the central median. Deputy chief planning officer Dick Gleeson said three or four times the number of existing trees would be planted on a phased basis. "Of course we regret the loss of trees, but the fact is that the street wasn't working and needed radical intervention," he said.