'In a nutshell, do robot trees work?' Cork City Council defends data delay

Cllr Colm Kelleher officially launched the ‘city trees’ in August 2021 during his term as lord mayor, and had to defend the spending of just over €404,000 of public money on them as part of a wider ‘greening of the city’ initiative. Picture: Andy Gibson

City officials have defended the delay in providing data on the impact of Cork’s controversial ‘robot trees’ on air quality.

Councillors were told air quality was a complex issue and they will have to wait until the first quarter of next year before the analysis of a full year of "raw data" from the devices will be published.