A county councillor in Co. Galway is calling on the government to revise legislation dealing with maintenance and removal of roadside trees so the burden of maintaining such trees does not rest solely with the landowner.

In late January, Galway county councillor Geraldine Donohue wrote to Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon on the issue.

In a response dated February 20, Minister Heydon said his department does not offer funding for the removal of roadside trees or trees outside of forests, although it has published guidance on the subject of maintaining roadside trees for landowners.

The minister said this guidance provides information on how to identify trees that have ash dieback, and outlines specific issues related to health and safety in tree work.

"As a matter of law, the care and management of trees adjacent to roads is the responsibility of the landowner on whose land the roadside trees are growing," Minister Heydon said.

"It is advisable that landowners make themselves aware of the full legal extent of their land ownership and of any obligations arising from this," he added.

The minister said that section 70 of the Roads Act 1993 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.

That responsibility extends to the preservation, felling, cutting, lopping, trimming or removal of any such tree, shrub, hedge or other vegetation in question, he said.

"It is thus advisable that landowners make themselves aware of the full legal extent of their land ownership and of any obligations arising from this. The implementation of the legislation on the management or removal of dangerous roadside trees is the responsibility of the local authority, in its capacity as the relevant road authority," Minister Heydon said in his letter to Cllr. Donohue.

However, the councillor said this response from the minister was "disappointing".

"The 1993 Roads Act is placing the responsibility for roadside trees on the landowners [or] property owner, which is very unfair given the enormous task of removing [trees] in a safe manner and the risk of such a task," she said.

According to Cllr. Donohue, the Roads Act needs to be revised "as there is over 30 years of growth [with] no maintenance".